Bentley University Top Questions

Some courses are very rigorous and some others are a little more lax. The courses emphasize teamwork and real world applications, which are helpful.

due to the small class size (<28), most professors know you on a first name basis (not ID number). Professors here are extremely helpful and understanding. You can almost always find them during office hours. Students tend to not take general requirement courses seriously (I see facebook and addictinggames.com on 90{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of their laptop screens) but for major courses or general business courses, they give their 120{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c}...usually. Although General requirements are annoying, they really help you become a well rounded person, not just someone who only knows about finance or accounting. I would say I've benefited greatly from them. Freshmen year's a joke, although I hear they're changing the 1st year curriculum. 2nd year on, completely slaps you in the face and you realize, holy crap, this is hard. Students are pretty competitive, one of the main thing at Bentley is teaching teamwork, you are almost always in a team no matter what class it is. In the end, this is a B-School, so learning for its own sake doesn't exist here. Bentley prepares you for the real world, state-of-the-art technology and what not, so when you come out you'd make loads of dough?

One of the great things about the school is that the class sizes are definitely small from the start. Some of the very basic classes everyone has to take (like math 123/131) tend to fill the room with about 30 students, but the rest of the classes are usually just above 20 students which allows you and your professor to get to know each other. I've been told first year profs aren't always the best ones you could get, but I still had some great professors this past semester. Classes generally don't have a lot of discussion though, and not many students are jumping to contribute either. From my experience there are typically 3-5 people in each class who generally lead the discussion when it happens. Competitiveness exists because we're all (for the most part) business students wanting to get one-up on each other, but so much of the general business curriculum is focused around working in teams on large projects that you really have to throw your competitive edge to the side to be able to work with others. The curriculum for next year is changing and eliminating a lot of the group work that has been done in years past, so it will be interesting to see where this takes the competitiveness of the student body. On the whole, however, everyone's pretty laid back outside of the classroom. No one's humiliating themselves with the kinds of conversations they have outside of class, but not everyone knows who wrote The Republic either. This reflects the mission of the school's curriculum though--if you come to Bentley, you're there to learn how to do business well. The school doesn't have much liberal artsy intellect flowing around because that's generally what people did not come here to be a part of. If you're on the fence about whether or not business is your thing, you may find that a school that offers a business program alongside an Arts and Sciences school may be a better fit.

Classes are an hour and fifteen, insightful teachers

Favorite class ever in my academic history: FI392: International Project Finance. This class is taught by former investment bankers and is essentially centered around investment banking-style projects. It is a class based entirely upon case studies of enormous investments. You analyze these multi-billion dollar investments from every aspect; it goes far beyond what you learn in a textbook and is as close as you can get to real-world experience inside a classroom. I have learned topics and techniques in this class that I'm not sure I ever would have ever learned in my academic career. I feel comfortable modeling large projects, analyzing risk, and building a proper valuation. Absolutely incredible class; a must-take for any finance major at this school.