Choosing a Practical Major Forum

[typ3]

From what I've heard from friends/family (though, obviously, that's not the best source for info) a business degree is essentially interchangeable with a general business degree in the eyes of an employer.

What do you mean a business degree is interchangeable with a general business degree? Like all business degrees are interchangeable? Or did you mean an economics degree is interchangeable with a general business degree? Whatever you're hearing, you should know that anecdotal evidence should be taken with a grain of salt. The WSJ shows Finance > Economics > Accounting. --LinkRemoved--
Everywhere I've seen Finance, Accounting, and Economics surpassed all other business degrees in employment outcomes. These 3 fair much better than general business, business admin, marketing, comm, internationLOL business, and whatever other bullshit business degrees they offer now.

Employers/Schools/People that matter don't look and say "wow, this cat has 17 majors". Just pick one (or the double option for two more classes) and get that 4.0. Alternatively, pick one of the business degrees and pair it with your favored degree of interest (e.g. philosophy or something.)

I still think Finance / Business would be the best hedge incase law doesn't work out. He opens himself to the finance industry as well as being on the operational side of businesses + consulting.

Finance consultants suck vs operational consulting. It's easy to look at a balance sheet and say cut wages by 20% and grow revenue by 10%. Without knowing what goes on in the trenches and how people actually function / work the advice is worthless. Plus there is a dearth of good operational managers at the moment for PE deals.

[Daily_Double]

.

[20170322]

From what I've heard from friends/family (though, obviously, that's not the best source for info) a business degree is essentially interchangeable with a general business degree in the eyes of an employer.

What do you mean a business degree is interchangeable with a general business degree? Like all business degrees are interchangeable? Or did you mean an economics degree is interchangeable with a general business degree? Whatever you're hearing, you should know that anecdotal evidence should be taken with a grain of salt. The WSJ shows Finance > Economics > Accounting. --LinkRemoved--
Everywhere I've seen Finance, Accounting, and Economics surpassed all other business degrees in employment outcomes. These 3 fair much better than general business, business admin, marketing, comm, internationLOL business, and whatever other bullshit business degrees they offer now.

Employers/Schools/People that matter don't look and say "wow, this cat has 17 majors". Just pick one (or the double option for two more classes) and get that 4.0. Alternatively, pick one of the business degrees and pair it with your favored degree of interest (e.g. philosophy or something.)

Alright. So, doing the Econ+Finance option in addition to Poli Sci would set me up for big-law and provide some good backup options?

[Daily_Double]

.

[snagglepuss]

I still think Finance / Business would be the best hedge incase law doesn't work out.

Yes, I agree.
______________________

Good luck to you OP. I'd advise that you focus on killing it in undergrad. Then you can secure a solid job, and after you get some work experience you'll have the luxury of choosing to continue in your career, go to law school, or do business school in a few years (probably the best option). Keeping doors open is in your best interest at this point; this will allow you time to decide which career path you are most passionate about pursuing. Your plan sounds good to me.

[SuperCerealBrah]

Accounting, if you are big on job security. It is not like you can't get finance jobs with an accounting degree. But you will be hard pressed to get good accounting jobs if all you have done is finance classes primarily.

[Gunnar Stahl]

Nearly every finance job you could get out of undergrad with a finance degree you could also get with an accounting degree, plus accounting gives you the whole big 4 route as well.

Also consider something like operations/supply chain management. Lot of job opportunities, and most schools don't require any more math than what the accounting/finance kids have to take.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 1792789054

[cotiger]

.

[guillaume_aus]

So, here's the question; would it be worthwhile to pursue a BA in economics (I'm eliminating a BS as an option, since it requires math above Calculus 1 at my prospective school)?

How could a degree in economics not require math above Calc 1? What courses would there be to take beyond principles of micro/macro? Econ is pretty much one giant applied math/stat clusterfuck.

I don't understand.

Intermediate Micro and Macro can be definitely done without integrals, but with derivatives. Not so much Econometrics, or anything based on continuous variables in statistics, but I suppose you could skip those things and make an Economics degree based of of Micro, Macro, and a handful of subject theory classes based off of Micro and Macro.

Also, I think OP would be surprised by how similar Philosophy and CS can actually be. They both draw heavily from Discrete Math.

[Ave]

We can't do that at my UG (completing the degree by taking only those econ courses with rudimentary math involved) so OP, you should first make sure that's even possible. Also, even if you do it, you still remain just as impractical as philosophy majors. There are so many of econ majors (that's a negative, by the way) - and a lot of them also major in math.

You don't need to major in something to acquire knowledge of it. Major in something you enjoy and make all your other classes count toward creating an employable transcript. After all, getting employed is about successfully marketing yourself. You want them to ask Why You when your major is out of the norm, not when you majored in something almost everyone else majored in and you can't answer that question convincingly.

[cotiger]

.

[Otunga]

So, here's the question; would it be worthwhile to pursue a BA in economics (I'm eliminating a BS as an option, since it requires math above Calculus 1 at my prospective school)?

How could a degree in economics not require math above Calc 1? What courses would there be to take beyond principles of micro/macro? Econ is pretty much one giant applied math/stat clusterfuck.

I don't understand.

Intermediate Micro and Macro can be definitely done without integrals, but with derivatives. Not so much Econometrics, or anything based on continuous variables in statistics, but I suppose you could skip those things and make an Economics degree based of of Micro, Macro, and a handful of subject theory classes based off of Micro and Macro.

Also, I think OP would be surprised by how similar Philosophy and CS can actually be. They both draw heavily from Discrete Math.

Depends how you tailor your philosophy degree. You could easily take courses in ethics, political philosophy, gender theory or anything similar, and not deal with much formal logic. That is not to say that the aforementioned areas aren't challenging - they are, and they're interesting. Personally, I took a good breadth of courses, so I didn't delve too deeply into any one field, though my department was heavily geared towards metaphysics, mind & epistemology, as a majority of departments are these days. That said, I did take philosophy of math, and that was probably the most rigorous course I took, as it had the most formal logic in it. (I wrote a short paper on structuralism in phil of math which I thought was fascinating.) I considered taking intermediate symbolic logic as well, which probably would've brought down my GPA slightly.

[redsox]

Intermediate Micro and Macro can be definitely done without integrals, but with derivatives. Not so much Econometrics, or anything based on continuous variables in statistics, but I suppose you could skip those things and make an Economics degree based of of Micro, Macro, and a handful of subject theory classes based off of Micro and Macro.

I suppose you're right. Though molding an entire course of study out of avoiding math seems strange. Also pointless. Why do an econ degree if you can't actually do any econ? lol.

I'm pretty sure you could even get through my undergrad metrics course without integrals. They'd be used to demonstrate proofs, but I don't recall ever having to use them on tests unless I was just regurgitating those proofs line for line. And I'm pretty sure that very few of the undergrad electives required it, though I'm not sure because I didn't take more than one or two. Didn't have to really use anything beyond calc 1 until my master's courses.

[cotiger]

.

[aboutmydaylight]

The vanilla econ program at most schools typically requires only Calc 1, Calc 2, and some form of calculus based intro to statistics. The basic econometrics upper div requirement typically only requires single variable calc so it can be completed with just these requirements as well.

A lot of upper div classes are very similar, all you really need to know how to do is take a derivative. That being said, that's just the basic econ BA. For people planning on pursuing any kind of post undergrad work or even people looking to get into the more analytical aspect of business, you basically need to take multivariable calc/differential equations/linear algebra and heavier statistics courses. For people pursuing a PhD you're better off just studying pure math.

Though a lot of these math courses are optional for just a basic degree, I will say they do help understand/simplify your workload in classes where its not a direct requirement.

[jarofsoup]

If you have the mind for it do a hard science so you can do patent/IP.

Also things link Finance, which can also qualify to be a CPA are also helpful.

If I could do it all over again I would go for a degree that would put you in a position after you graduate not to be an admin assitant.

[jordan15]

FWIW, psychology is the only true non-math degree that I can think of that several of my friends were able to get real, major related jobs directly out of UG without internships/connections/prestigious UG.

TCR is to pick the major that allows you to take the most amount of P/NP classes. Even if you decide not to go to law school, protecting your GPA is extremely important.

I would not recommend CS for someone who does not truly love coding, especially when they claim to be terrible at math.

[IgosduIkana]

I majored in Poli Sci and Philosophy. I am lucky to have done well enough on the LSAT or else I'd have been pretty ****ed.

[Instinctive]

Accounting is not a math degree. At all. Anyone here who has said it is CLEARLY is not an accountant or accounting major. The most you ever have to do is add/subtract/multiply/divide with a calculator.

Accounting is a degree based on rules.