<p>Companies come and go. Always have and always will. Most people good enough to land a job at a firm like Lehman will have found another job in business. </p>
<p>For “soft” majors in business such marketing the pay has always been lower. Say $45K at a place with a $50K average for all biz grads. The placement rate was similar.</p>
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<p>“Economics” as one of the top-paying majors is true but severely misleading. Many top-ranked private universities do not have undergraduate business schools. But at these schools, quite a few students want to pursue careers in investment banking. So what do most of these students major in? Economics.</p>
<p>I know from my alma mater (Georgia Tech) that people who majored in business (accounting) got jobs far, far, far more easily than people who majored in economics or even finance. (That is biased because I was an undergraduate during the 2008-2009 crisis, I admit.)</p>
<p>What good is that illusory high starting salary if you can’t get it? Accounting salaries are lower, but the chances of realizing them are much higher.</p>
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<p>Seems like there are very few economics majors at GT (or very few who respond to the [GT</a> career survey](<a href=“Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page”>Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page)) so it is hard to make too many conclusions about GT economics graduates.</p>
<p>At [url=<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm]Berkeley[/url”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm]Berkeley[/url</a>], economics majors do not do as well as business majors, but still do significantly better than the overall average.</p>
<p>There probably is a division between economics majors who do the major with lots of math (often double majoring or minoring with math or statistics), versus those who do it with just one year of calculus. The former have greater access to graduate school and well paying jobs in quantitative finance and actuarial work, but appear to comprise only about one fourth of economics majors at Berkeley (based on enrollment in the “more math” versus “less math” economics courses).</p>
<p>UCB does a good job of tracking liberal arts grads post grad plans. Very few large U’s do that at all.</p>
<p>Cal Poly SLO has rather detailed [career</a> survey results](<a href=“http://www.careerservices.calpoly.edu/students/career_planning/gsr.htm]career”>http://www.careerservices.calpoly.edu/students/career_planning/gsr.htm) as well, including by major. Believe it or not, there are actually people who majored in biology, English, history, and political science at Cal Poly SLO (although they tend to do poorly job-wise compared to economics, business, engineering, and math majors).</p>
<p>I’m finding that I didn’t need to be nearly as worried about majoring in political science as I had been led to believe. I have been applying in a wide variety of industries and drumming up interest in all of them. I have an interview tomorrow for a position that was advertised to be for business majors. I am not going to be making major bucks right out of school like some majors do, but I don’t need to, either. So for now I am satisfied. I was expecting things to be completely dismal, but I am getting a pretty steady stream of calls, so it’s only a matter of time before something works out.</p>
<p>I am guessing where I went to school might be making a difference. In my region, the U I went to is a big deal.</p>
<p>^Emaheevul07, Congratulations on your upcoming graduation!! I am sure that you will find a job soon…hang in there. I look forward to hearing your post about being hired!!</p>
<p>By the way, kollegekid is still in highschool…which explains why she did’nt know how to properly apply the economic term.</p>
<p>Some fields are still strong. S with a major in CS/Math had 4 interviews and 3 offers. Of course, he was in the top of his department and has strong skills and a nice resume.</p>
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<p>They used to teach this stuff around the 8th grade back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth. I had a lot of practice with interest rates computations in high-school. I recall taking my first finance course where about two-thirds of the class had huge problems comprehending the concept of Net Present Value and even bigger problems trying to calculate it.</p>