In North Carolina, Appalachian has the only accredited health care management program based out of a business school. All of the others are out of allied health or something of that nature. Our health care management major provides immediate opportunities for managing a physician office or entry-level hospital management

But the real advantages come if you’re going into grad school. If you want to be a VP or CEO of a health care organization, it’s pretty much standard now that you either have an MBA or MHA. I’ve been in the pre-med program and am going to medical school to become a doctor

I would encourage other students to come to Appalachian. I was accepted at NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, Vanderbilt, Erskine College, and Appalachian. I chose Appalachian because I love the outdoors and the atmosphere here fit me more. I’ve never regretted not choosing a bigger or higher ranked school. Appalachian is just the perfect place to be — atmosphere, faculty, just everything

One of my favorite teachers here is in the health care management program. He has a different way of looking at things than most teachers and kind of gets you to think outside the box. Another favorite of mine teaches finance. His class is a unique experience. It’s real fun. He’s a very down-to-earth kind of guy. He makes a lot of jokes and has a lot of voice and temperament modulations that just make it an interesting class. You learn a lot as well. It’s very nice

My parents are middle class and money for college was a big issue. So my Chancellor scholarship, the largest one the university offers, helped out a lot. It’s not quite a full ride; it’s probably about 75% and you have to be in the honors program. Add to that the fact that Appalachian is the best deal for your money in the state … by far

Students who meet eligibility requirements are invited to participate in the honors program. Most students who are asked do participate. It gives you a big advantage — whether you are looking for a job or trying to get into a Master’s program

The health care management major requires a 400-hour internship. Most students do it in the summer between their junior and senior year and they make it a 40-hour week, 10-week program. Some do opt to do it after their senior year, but the majority do it between their junior and senior year. It’s pretty much a full-time job

For my internship I worked with Atlantic Orthopedics in Wilmington, North Carolina — that’s where I’m from — and I was an administrative assistant working on projects that had to do with process management. It was a good learning experience. With health care management, it just depends on where you go. There are so many different sectors of health care. If you’re in a hospital or a physician management office, you can get a completely different experience. It just depends on where you go

Internships give you a little bit of real-world experience … even if it’s only for a short period of time. If you talk with people, you’ll often find that those who work before they go to graduate school have a better understanding of the classroom concepts … because they can relate them to some actual experiences. An internship kind of helps you do that on a smaller scale … during your undergraduate career

I’m the president of Pi Sigma Epsilon which is a national co-ed marketing and selling fraternity — but we’re open to all majors … including majors outside of the college of business. We actually have a lot of members with majors in exercise science, education, history, philosophy and so on. The premise of that is that everyone has to at least market themselves … no matter what job or career they’re choosing … and they’re probably all going to be marketing some type of project or organization when they begin working

Marketing is our #1 priority. We do a lot of fundraisers — we just had a golf tournament this past weekend. But Pi Sigma Epsilon is also partly a social organization. The people in our organization are very good friends with each other. They’re study mates. They go out together. It’s just a really, really good group.

I would urge other students, if they aren’t already, to get involved with a student organization. If you’re involved with any club or organization, they’re having speakers all the time. Pi Sigma Epsilon invites guest speakers to many of our meetings. If the speaker is well-known and of interest to many outside our club we’ll even open the meeting up to the general public. There are also other opportunities to network such as career fairs and job fairs. So there’s plenty of opportunity there. People just have to take it

I’ve also gone to pretty much all of the [Harlan E. Boyles Distinguished] CEO lectures since I’ve been here. You know some of the speakers are of more interest to particular students. For example, this spring’s speaker was Suzanne Freeman, President of the Carolinas Medical Center. So, for health care management majors, she was perfect. She came and talked to our classes specifically before the CEO lecture

The CEO lectures are definitely a good time to make contacts, do networking and learn a little bit from the speakers. I would definitely encourage everyone to go to the lecture ... and especially the reception afterwards because you can do a lot of networking there with faculty and people from the business world. I’ve made lots of connections that way

One piece of advice I'd give to students who want to come to Walker College is to make sure you go to class. That tends to be an issue with some people willing to skip, especially on snow days or when the weather gets warm again or any excuse at all to skip. You know, our faculty is very dedicated to teaching and they’re there to help you. If you go to class they’re a lot more willing to help you and more available to you so I definitely encourage students to go to class

You can make a lot of friends and a lot of connections in our college of business, especially once you get into your major. So, go ahead and network and hold onto those people. Even after you graduate, keep in contact with those people, keep in contact with your professors because that networking aspect is a really big factor in helping you get a job. Later on down the road, you just never know who you’re going to meet or who’s going to know who

With Pi Sigma Epsilon we’re bringing in a lot of majors outside the college and a lot of these students end up with some connection to the college — either with a business major or business minor. I believe that the way the world is now, almost all students would benefit from having some type of business background, no matter what field they’re going into — even if they’re going to be teachers or physical therapists. Just having a little bit of a business background will help them out, so I encourage all students to at least consider getting a minor in the college of business.