"The Career Placement Center really helped me out."

Alex, Senior in the College of Business

Major: Double major in Finance and Marketing
Hometown: Hoffman Estates, Illinois

Favorite place to study: I like to study upstairs in the library because it's really quiet and they have these couches on one of the ends and these big windows.
What do you enjoy most about being an Illinois State student? I like the student involvement and interaction with professors.
What's in your CD player right now? Eminem

What's your favorite class? It's a marketing class. I really like it because the professor is really nice. He is really interactive. It's really given me a chance to incorporate everything that I've learned into that one class.

"Well, when I was looking at different universities and different colleges, I was looking for a place that was comfortable and a place where I’d find it easier to learn. I really liked the fact that Illinois State was more of a smaller college feel in a big university. After interacting with some of the professors and things like that, I got that feeling even more. As far as specifically Finance and Marketing, I’ve always been told that I was more of a people person and that Marketing should be where I should be, but at the same time, I’ve always done well in math and had a little more of a quantitative aspect to my learning. I came in as a Finance major but everyone was right, Marketing was something that I really enjoyed and I ended up adding that major.

"The professors here are great. They are very helpful and they create sort of a family environment for the University and for yourself. I can’t remember one professor that hasn’t offered their home phone number or another way of contacting them if you needed that extra help or maybe just an extra question. Sometimes they put them on the syllabus, you know probably about half of them do even their home numbers, or their personal e-mail addresses.

"My favorite professor is Dr. Solberg, Joe Solberg. He’s a finance teacher actually. He’s my favorite professor because I’ve had a lot of interaction with him. I’m involved with Delta Sigma Pi, which is a professional business fraternity. He is the advisor. He’s really neat because I feel like I can talk to him about everything. He’s more of a friend than a professor. I’ve only had one of his classes. It was early on in my sophomore year and he’s sort of been a mentor to me ever since. He’s the reason I joined Delta Sigma Pi. I still keep very close contact with him. I know his family. It’s pretty good. I like it. Like I said, he’s more of a friend.

"Immediately what comes to mind when you talk about student services on campus is the Career Placement Center. I am fortunate enough to already have a job coming out of school, and I would not have been able to do that without the Career Placement Center. The people there are very helpful. They have a whole library of different references that you can use to help yourself find a right place to work and help yourself go through the interview process. They have a Web site that’s erecruiting.com that they’ve made. They made it very easy for me to post my resume and find employers as well as have employers find me."