<p>What kinds of people thrive in the business environment? (What kinds of people are NOT successful in the business environment?) I'm in high school, but I'm planning to major in math. I'm thinking either engineering or business as a career...how should I figure out which one is right for me?</p>
<p>First, I would join clubs at my high school that explore business and engineer.</p>
<p>Second, I would perform information interviews on friends and family who are engineers or businessmen.</p>
<p>Third, I would do some hardcore introspection on my strengths, values, and dreams.</p>
<p>Finally, I would look at my options based on reality.</p>
<p>IMO, business is more sociology topped with a bit of math whereas engineering is math topped with little bit of hard science, both come with a side of problem solving and a get it done mentality.</p>
<p>In any business there are the why, who, and hows (what is really the purpose of the business and is established by what the business does). Businessmen generally take care of the why and who and engineers generally take care of the how, for most companies with a product offering. So, it depends on what type of problem you want to tackle.</p>
<p>Eh, my school doesn’t have clubs like that. </p>
<p>What do you mean by “introspection on my strengths, values, and dreams?” Are there common-held strengths/values/dreams that all people share when involved in business? What are they? I mean, I’ve heard the stereotype that businessmen are selfish and greedy, etc. Is this all true? </p>
<p>Since I’m probably going to major in math, I’d be going into a math-heavy business field. What are your experiences with these fields?</p>
<p>If business is all about the money, then naturally it will attract those who are obsessed with money.</p>
<p>Also, if you want an engineering job you should get an engineering degree. A pure math degree won’t get you hired unless you have a very applied curriculum, one that includes a lot of computing/modeling/signal processing/etc courses.</p>
<p>Re: Am I cut out for business school?</p>
<p>do you have a pulse?</p>
<p>There are so many different areas in business that “Am I cut out for business?” is not really a good question. You might not be cut out for corporate finance but you might be a great project manager. You might not be a good accountant but you could be great in advertising.</p>
<p>Well, I’m a math major. How many people in business started out as math majors, and which types of business did they do?</p>
<p>Before I went back for my MBA I did a search on ChemEs with an MBA and what kind of companies they would run. I found a lot ran what you would thing; consulting, manufacturing, development, etc… So, I narrowed that down and searched for engineers in who were CEOs of companies that wouldn’t be considered technology based. I found a lot more than I thought I would running insurance companies to consumer product companies. </p>
<p>Basically, what you major in isn’t going to define you so don’t think of it that way. Think how is what I know going to get me to where I want to be? What additional knowledge will I need? A math major, even applied math, if very generalist, your real skills will come with life and work experience, so choose those well. Couple that with a business degree/experience and you’d be a perfect quant ideal for actuarial work or risk management type positions. Get the engineering degree or similar experience instead you’ll be heavy in quant plus a health dose of anaylitical problem solving who knows where you’ll end up, that will be up to you.</p>
<p>So an engineering major would open up more possibilities than a math/applied math major? (I say “math/applied math” because some schools I’m looking at don’t offer applied math majors, but their general math departments are just very applied–and high ranked in the applied math arena.)</p>
<p>What type of business suits a math major? At the undergrad level, really just economics. At the master’s level, financial engineering / Quantitative and Computational Finance and economics. At the doctoral level, all business programs can become very quantiative and require knowledge of advanced mathematics (most business PhD’s are either from engineering, math, or econ backgrounds).</p>
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<p>It depends on what you mean by “possibilities”. The most common undergraduate degree is a business degree, so just looking at the numbers, more jobs require a business degree than any other. That’s compounded by the fact that most individuals at middle management or above either earn a business degree or take some business education / certification course.</p>
<p>If you mean the most “versatile” degree, in that a degree which can be taken to the most number of fields and career paths, engineering is the most versatile for undergraduates, and probably a JD or MBA for graduates.</p>
<p>And if you’re torn between engineering, business, and finance, you might want to consider industrial engineering. IE is basically business engineering - improving efficiency, designing contract structures, creating business plans, etc. It can get incredibly computationally and mathematically intensive in the optimization areas (linear, non-linear, and stochastic).</p>
<p>If you go to a business school in your first few years you can hopefully get the opportunity to take a variety of courses and see what you like. They’ll probably make everyone take two lower level accounting classes, micro and macro economics(not really “business” but might make you want to switch to an econ major and out of business), and maybe a general business course which gives you an overview of things. Some schools I looked at and the one I attend have a intro to business class where you don’t do much work but mostly listen to speakers talk about various aspects of business and what kind of careers you can have. You’ll probably have an Intro to Finance class, Intro to Marketing, Intro to Management, and maybe a computer related class. Take the ones that interest you and pursue one as a major. The rest are probably required for your BBA anyway so no loss for you.</p>
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<p>The issue is that she’s deciding between applied math, engineering, and business. While applied math and engineering generally have significant overlap in the first few years (and actually beyond), business and engineering usually do not overlap in the first year, especially regarding the math sequence. Business majors usually take something like “Survey of Calculus” while engineering and math majors take Calc I / Calc II / Calc III, etc.</p>
<p>dont ever choose a major just b/c u want to make money. i’m a business major, but i’m not doing it for the money. sure i’d like to be rich, but thats not y i chose to do business. i did it bc i like having my own rules, i’m creative, i’m competitivie, i like to be the best, im not afraid of taking risks, i can accept losses/failures, i can handle pressure, im a good teamplayer, i can lead and i can be led etc…</p>
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<p>I hope you didn’t choose undergrad business for the money. You’ll be sorely disappointed if that’s the case.</p>
<p>I don’t care about the money right now…I just need some sort of a direction. All I know is it has to be a math-heavy field, and most often that leads people to business or engineering. </p>
<p>So you’re saying I should stay away from business, at least for now, because there’s hardly any overlap between applied math/undergrad business?</p>
<p>Well, you’re not going to find much math in most undergrad business programs. In fact, I find most biz majors to be abysmal at math. The amount of struggling I saw in financial accounting at my colleges astounds me, and that class is EASY. And it’s a pretty highly ranked business school.</p>
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<p>Undergrad business is not math heavy. You could make it math heavy, and some graduate programs do, but as an undergrad, at the majority of schools you usually don’t even take Calc I. Since the engineering and math programs require you to take the Calc sequence as a freshman, if you start off as a business major and take their math courses, you’ll probably be behind.</p>
<p>It would be easier to show you if you give us a specific school.</p>
<p>I’m still looking at schools…I’ll be applying in a few months. I’m looking mostly at schools with good/decent engineering and business programs in the northeast. Do you have any suggestions?</p>
<p>Cornell, I suppose.</p>