<p>As the topics states, what do you guys think? Well i obviously know it's totally personal preference, but what I want to know is which major opens more doors? I would like to hear personal opinions as well whether he or she enjoys this major or that.</p>
<p>Business admin opens more doors, but accounting will provide more job security. A standard business degree can qualify you to work in a number of fields so you’ll have a lot of options. In contrast, an accountant is an accountant (whether you do taxes, audit, consult, or whatever, you’re still primarily focused on one skill set - preparing and analyzing financial information). Lots of people need accountants, and once you get a job you’re not as likely to lose it as you would be working at some random company doing some random job with a straight business degree.</p>
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<p>LOL. You got the two backwards.</p>
<p>I disagree. A lot of business majors have lost their jobs in the recession, but I don’t hear about a lot of accountants hitting up the unemployment office. Moreover, people with a degree in business wind up all over the place doing tons of different jobs (not all of them that great, of course). What jobs do accounting majors do? Oh, that’s right, they work as accountants.</p>
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<p>My son’s friend just lost his job several months ago. He’s completed two CPA exams.</p>
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<p>Everything that you post is inaccurate. Are you doing this on purpose? Most newbie accounting BSs aren’t working in public accounting right now because of the recession and the gutting of SOX. Thus, accounting majors pursue tons of different paths.</p>
<p>Overall, the job market for accountants has remained decent, and it is expected to grow in the next several years - about the time this guy would graduate.</p>
<p>[Though</a> job market is still gloomy, more bright spots are emerging - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/01/10/though_job_market_is_still_gloomy_more_bright_spots_are_emerging/]Though”>http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/01/10/though_job_market_is_still_gloomy_more_bright_spots_are_emerging/)</p>
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<p>[Career</a> In Accounting | Find Out If A Career In Accounting is for You at All Business Schools](<a href=“http://www.allbusinessschools.com/faqs/accounting-careers.php]Career”>http://www.allbusinessschools.com/faqs/accounting-careers.php)</p>
<p>I’m not saying that all accounting majors have to become accountants, but most do. All of the most popular careers for accounting majors involve doing some form of accounting. With a general business degree you can work in any one of a vast swath of business fields, from finance to marketing to human resources.</p>
<p>It just doesn’t sound like you know what you’re talking about. An accounting major takes 99% of the same classes as other business majors plus ~7-10 accounting classes. You could take every class for a finance or other business major in one semester. You can’t shoehorn accountants when their profession won’t end up taking a (moderate) majority of them. As taxguy says, it’s a weedout profession every step of the way.</p>
<p>You can’t work anywhere with a business adminstration degree, It closes doors for you, agc I’m guessing you are going for a business admin degree? That degree is as worthless as international business.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that all accounting majors MUST become accountants. In reality, though, most people who major in accounting do want to be accountants. My main argument is this: when you get a job as an accountant, you are less likely to lose that job in a recession. The reason is pretty clear: companies always need accountants, so the longer you’ve worked as an accountant the less likely you are to get fired or laid off, even if the company has to scale back on accountants. When companies cut positions, the first people they look at are the “fillers” who aren’t doing a job that is absolutely vital to the operation of the company. Business admin people traditionally have those jobs because business admin people usually go in to college wanting to work for a business doing something. They don’t train themselves for four years to obtain a clear career path like accountants do. (Note: I’m not treating all business degrees as equal here. I’m specifically targeting the general degree in business management, which requires a hodgepodge of courses from all of the more focused areas - a generalist degree will not provide the same amount of job security as a specialist’s degree in most situations).</p>
<p>So, to make myself perfectly clear: YES, accounting majors can work outside of accounting. However, by far the most popular reason for which one majors in accounting is to become an accountant. In the field of accounting, there are significantly fewer career paths to follow than in the much broader field of business.</p>
<p>Dawgie, no, I am not getting a business admin degree. I actually think that majoring in general business administration is one of the dumbest choices anyone can make in their academic career. I’m basing my assessment of each degree based on things I have read and have heard from business and accounting majors who I go to law school with, all of whom worked in their respective fields before returning to law school.</p>
<p>Well, if agc got his information from business/accounting majors who had not clearly already failed at their first career path, he would know that general management is worse than accounting on pretty much every front. Obviously most accountants will work in accounting, but here 10% go straight from college to an investment bank or consulting firm, so they do have options if they choose to take them. Again, there are obviously jobs where accounting is not the most useful degree. However, in almost every circumstance, a person with an accounting degree will be more likely to get an interview than a person with a general management degree.</p>
<p>I agree completely that general management is far worse than accounting, and I didn’t think that anything I’ve said gave an impression contrary to that. Perhaps I should have phrased myself better - instead of saying that general management people have more doors opened to them, I probably should gone with the nonsugar-coated version: people with business management degrees tend to get stuck in jobs that they never dreamed they’d get stuck in. The market is so saturated with business management people that they wind up doing anything from being unemployed to managing a McDonald’s to actually (and rarely) finding their way to a decent job as an executive. It is precisely because accouting majors get the interviews that they don’t have to settle for the jobs that management majors take. If you get a degree in management, you could wind up doing anything (and I mean that in a negative way); if you get a degree in accounting, you will probably find a decent job working for a business, and that job will probably involve doing accounting - thus, you will be more secure and have a job that you (in theory) enjoy much more.</p>
<p>P.S. I go to Yale Law School - the business/accounting majors I know did not fail in their first career path, by a long shot.</p>
<p>Guys, what are you talking about? Just get BBA (Bachelors of Business Administration) in Accounting and thats it…dont you dare to compare Business Administration degree, by itself, with Accounting</p>
<p>@ agc: That post makes more sense. Congrat’s on Yale.</p>
<p>@ Tosh: People say that all the time, just assume he meant BBA in management vs. BBA in accounting. Don’t break his balls for it.</p>
<p>Blah, blah! I see your schwartz is as big as mine! Blah, blah!</p>
<p>[Careers-in-Business.com:</a> Your Guide to Business Jobs](<a href=“http://www.careers-in-business.com/]Careers-in-Business.com:”>http://www.careers-in-business.com/)</p>
<p>You should specialize if you can. General Business Admin. shows a possible lack of focus and, possibly, an inability to make decisions.</p>
<p>Well, it does not actually matter, for Accounting > Business Administration or Management, or whatever it is called 
anyway. However, an MBA is another story…</p>
<p>agc congrats on Yale.</p>
<p>openedskittles and Dawgie, thanks!</p>
<p>agc0319, there is more to business major than accounting. it’s good to have an accounting background in any business/corporation, especially if you own it.
you gotta see the big picture. even if you dont work as an accountant(who i think makes decent money but not that much), you can still use accounting in other job positions, and even personally</p>
<p>and as for the question, business administration is what you would use to start a business, or keep it running, with people. i would take it but i wouldn’t stop there. and i would take accounting… </p>
<p>but i would start thinking about what i want to do soon… you dont want to be stuck looking for a job and not know what you want to do…
you might even be stuck as an accountant, dont get trapped into a dead end job.</p>
<p>NO QUESTION: Surprisingly, majoring in accounting opens more doors than majoring in business administration. However, accounting is also a MUCH tougher major.</p>