<p>I'm trying to see if there is any usefulness having a business minor for Engineers. Does the AEM Minor go in depth like the major does? Dyson has a very good business program right? And would it be nice having a business minor in my resume (Like would it be impressive having a business minor to engineering firms or they don't care) or I'm better of minoring in another course such as CS or something of sort.</p>
<p>If you’re not already an OR major in the engineering school, have you considered that as a minor? It’s got some business concepts included in the curriculum. Accounting is one of classes available. It might be a good fit.</p>
<p>AEM for Engineers (all majors except ORIE):
- Accounting >> Useful to understand finance/financial statements
- Marketing >> wishy-washy but good to know
- Business management >> a mini leadership course in a business world context really, but kinda difficult to buy into since there’s no practice beyond the coursework
- Micro/macro economics (can double count as liberal arts credits)
- Finance >> Powerful concepts
- Stats (can double count since most engineering maj require stats)</p>
<p>Those courses required for the minor are the “core” courses of AEM <a href=“Applied Economics and Management Degree Program | Cornell Dyson”>Applied Economics and Management Degree Program | Cornell Dyson;
The second page of that pdf shows you how deep each of those branches go so no, the depth is not there. However, he core classes allow you to understand how capital markets work (debt instruments and stock markets etc). IMO It’s generally good knowledge for ANY person to have since understanding these concepts let you understand political/financial news with a clarity that is not evident in media portrayals.</p>
<p>Dyson has a good reputation within business/finance. I don’t think most engineering firms have that much of an idea, esp since you’d probably just put “business minor” on your resume. </p>
<p>For engineering jobs, I don’t think any of my peers would say “omg I totally got that job because I got a business minor”. All of them took on the courses out of interest/curiosity and it is this interest/curiosity that served them well in interviews. Think along the lines of “I was curious so I decided to pursue it” as opposed to “I did it because I can and thought you might like that”.</p>
<p>For business/finance jobs:Overall, AEM minor would be a plus but not required. Tech consulting for firms like accenture/deloitte won’t need it for sure. Wall street (GSachs, JP etc.) really only cares about GPA (mostly for the first interview) and quant/interview skills. However, it might be easier to convince them you’re actually interested in business with one.</p>
<p>If you’re considering a minor to pad your resume, I would be careful. Do so only if you’re actually interested in it or you just must end up worse off. For example, the AEM minor (unless they’ve finally decided to relent) is notorious for being VERY PICKY towards engineers. You are required to take those courses in specific semesters (AEM majors get the same courses in diff semesters in a diff format although by the same profs) and you might have scheduling conflicts. You might find yourself being forced to pick between a AEM course to finish the minor you started or a eng course you are interested in/required. Also, if you take on another engineering minor, (the same scheduling issues might come up) your GPA might take a hit. Of course, many have taken the challenge and even came out with a better GPA. Either case, it might be hard to get through if there’s no personal interest other than to pad a resume. What might be more useful is to enter academic competitions (you’ll probably have to pay close attention to emails/dig them out) or join one of the many project teams at Cornell. There’s too much stuff to say about those here lol.</p>
<p>A hidden benefit of taking the AEM minor: you get subscribed to AEM-school/business related events and relatively unique course offerings outside the minor requirements that connect you with non-engineers (entrepreneurship, business lab for engineers). Again, only a plus if you’re actually interested in business.</p>
<p>I want to major in ECE and we have a strong ionic bond, It would require a large lattice enthalpy to seperate us. Minors are where my problems are, ECE majors usually minor in CS but I don’t like CS, maybe I might eventually like it in Cornell but right now no. I really wanted to minor in Engineering Management but CCers are pretty good at discouraging people. Most posters said minoring at undergrad level in EM is a waste of time as I will have little or no experience and no employer will be like, “Oh he is a fresh grad with an engineering management minor, let him head our projects team”. Business was probably the next I could think of, I actually like business but I wasn’t sure if minoring in Business will be particularly useful because I’ve seen successful businessmen without a business degree. @Swimmer726 I checked the aims of Operations Research and it is quite similar to what I want. I also have an inexplicable liking for Mechanical Engineering, but I almost don’t see how that is useful with my major. I want to do what I’m interested in but what if what I’m interested in doesn’t make much sense job prospects wise (that’s in relation with my major)?Is there a way in my freshman year I can look at the minors: CS, EngManagement, MechEng, ORIE or Business and see which one I’m not only interested in but makes sense job wise.</p>
<p>Your best bet to test out potential minors is during your “intro to _____ engineering” requirement during freshman year. If you know what your major will be, the intro courses serve redundant information at a level of depth that doesn’t get you any where/ahead for future courses but they give you a pretty good idea of what that field entails academically. I majored in MechE and took Intro to Nanotechnology for this reason. Learned about fundamentals of diodes and lithography and grain sizes and such. It was interesting, but it also helped me decide that materials science was not the way to go for me. My MechE buddies later commented on how intro to MechE was a waste of time for them in retrospect because they had to relearn the material anyway in greater depth in the curriculum.</p>
<p>I want to say again that minors won’t do you any good for job prospects/academics if you’re not interested in them besides as a platform to get a job. Minors are less than one line on your resume and the depth of minors is not enough for employers to be confident that you are qualified. They are mostly for interest/curiosity and letting you have moments in cross-discipline projects where you get to say “ah I understand the idea of what you’re saying but I probably can’t do your job”.</p>
<p>If getting a job is your priority, you could consider taking extra high-level (4xxx and graduate 5xxx) courses on top of the requirements instead of a minor. These higher level courses help you specialize in the areas of your major that you are good at/like/focused towards a target industry and these specializations will put you above some of the competition.</p>
<p>Although I do not have examples for ECE, i know that when I elected not to take “4xxx Feedback and Controls” which was an non-required extension to the required “3xxx system dynamics”, I was unable to apply to certain positions at companies like Mathworks (Matlab) who were looking for expertise in feedback and control theory. </p>
<p>And again, if getting a job is your priority, consider spending your time doing research with a professor or join a project team instead of a minor. These opportunities are available to undergrad students at Cornell (at greater availability than a lot of other engineering schools) and give you recognized experience. A freshman-all-major-welcome team is CUAUV and several others recruit ECEs (attend club fest/project team showcase events or look out for recruitment posters). For ECE’s specifically, there’s a Big Red Chip team and two of my friends now work for Intel as alumni of that team (neither minored in anything). Not sure if that team is active anymore though… </p>
<p>Of course, I’d encourage you to do all/some/both research/team/minor but it’s up to you to define your limits or lack thereof.</p>
<p>Also, ECE + Mechanical Engineering would probably put you in a better position than most for robotics if you pick the right courses.</p>
<p>Sort of off topic: Microsoft does hire software “program managers” which could use EngMgt concepts I guess… but most candidates have that experience elsewhere.</p>
<p>^Wow Thanks. Job isn’t my priority though, I intend to go to grad school and get a Phd but I’m also keeping jobs in perspective.</p>
<p>In that case everything I said still applies to grad school, BUT HUGE EMPHASIS IS NEEDED FOR THE RESEARCH PART. If you are considering PhD, research is a DEFINITE MUST. Take advantage of Cornell’s resources!</p>
<p>Professors will often be reluctant to take freshmen although it never hurts to ask. Look up the department directory for professors and see what research areas interest you. Email politely to REQUEST meetings and wait patiently (poke them again if there’s no response after 1 weeks. Often times they just forget and/or are too busy). Be sure to include who you are and your interest in research with them. But you need to be brief too lol. I’m pretty convinced the profs only read half my emails sometimes. Blank emails such as “could we please meet? I’d like to talk about some stuff” is a waste of their time.</p>
<p>I know this thread is a bit old but I was wondering why the engineers are not allowed to take classes with aem majors. Why does the university do this? It would be a great experience for engineers interested in a business minor to be in classes with business majors. Can somebody please elaborate on possible reasons for the segregation?</p>
<p>@smileygerl From a collage of administrative and student responses in my experience:
It’s not just segregation of engineers but segregation of AEM majors from everyone else. Again, the AEM only semesters of the same class (AEM 1200 Marketing or something for example) are TAUGHT IN A DIFFERENT MANNER than the free-for-all semesters, even though the same professors teach them. Think about how differently a professor can teach a business class if a lot of the basic knowledge or concepts are implied instead of explicitly covered. Of course I’m not sure that’s the case, but that’s what I’ve been told. Also, you’d probably have more involved projects/group work for AEM only classes due to similar reasons. </p>
<p>AEM is a specialized program in Cornell and this way they are “exclusive”. Yes, it’s probably beneficial for engineers to interact with AEM majors in class but AEM does not exist to serve engineers. </p>
<p>There are other opportunities to interact with AEM students in classes (NBA XXXX), but not for the business minor AEM courses. For example, “NBA 3000 Entrepreneurship and Private Equity” is a Johnson School (MBA) undergrad version of the class and some AEM majors take them as electives.</p>
<p>The university is there to serve all students. I believe segregating AEM classes has more to do with decreasing competition in those classes (for AEM students). Engineers can handle any in depth AEM class.</p>
<p>Perhaps I was not being clear when I tried to move away from a engineer-centric view when I said “…segregation of AEM from everyone else”</p>
<p>[Charles</a> H. Dyson School: AEM Minors](<a href=“Applied Economics and Management Degree Program | Cornell Dyson”>Applied Economics and Management Degree Program | Cornell Dyson)
Clearly there are opportunities for other majors aside from engineers to obtain a business minor with the AEM faculty. Therefore, unless you are implying that AEM students are the least capable students at Cornell, your belief in “decreasing competition in those classes” doesn’t make a lot of sense. Besides, the AEM-only classes that are also required by the minor are the freshmen “1200 and 2400” classes. The other four courses are only restrictive by scheduling and the “recommended” pre-reqs (although Prof. Rich Curtis might actually kick you out of his finance course if you don’t have the accounting course completed). Again, the AEM-only motivation is to benefit the AEM students, and not to screw over others. </p>
<p>On another note, I just looked at the courses of study after seeing a lot of changes to the minor program based on the link above and I have to add two things:
- There is a new business minor available to engineers and the courses I listed in my original post do not apply exactly to this new minor. Most notably, it’s now 1200 OR 2400 as a requirement as opposed to “and”. Note that they are still segregated classes from the AEM freshmen (now listed as 2200 and 2420 for AEM freshmen). The new minor looks a bit more interesting than what was available to me lol.
2.It seems like aside from the freshmen AEM-only classes, the upper level courses are more flexible now in terms of scheduling. HOORAY. As well, the minor is now renamed the “Dyson business minor for engineers”. Glad to see they are improving the options for engineers.</p>