Best Business Degree to Compliment and Engineering Degree?

Hello all,
I am currently studying Systems Engineering, which is already a lot of business. However, I am very interested in business as well and am thinking of declaring a dual major or at least a minor in the business college. I am thinking either finance or accounting, but I just want to hear some opinions on what everyone else thinks. So my question to all of you would be… What section or degree in business would best compliment an engineering degree? Thank you and I appreciate all of your responses.

I would recommend entrepreneurship. The ability to solve problems and build things (engineering) coupled with the basic knowledge to start a company (entrepreneurship) is a pretty powerful combination.

My job title says “systems engineer”, and I don’t do any “business” and don’t know any peers who do any either. The closest I can think of are the times we have to deal with the customers, since part of our job is transforming customer performance requirements into system and subsystem specifications. Maybe I’m just doing the wrong kind of systems engineering.

I would suggest focusing on the technical for now. In a few years, you will have some experience and will know better what you want to do and what you will need in order to do it. Most engineering managers will be majorly turned off by a double major in engineering and business, since it suggests you don’t really want to be an engineer and are expecting a fast-track into management. A minor isn’t much better, and has the additional problem of being mostly useless.

Entrepreneurship… I am ALWAYS wary of that minor. Remember that entrepreneurship courses help you develop your marketable ideas, but most people don’t really have any worth pursuing and/or don’t know how to make them work. Before you spend time and effort on that minor, I would do some real soul searching and ask yourself what ideas that you have that are prepared to turn into a company.

Sounds like an Industrial and System engineering (vs. “systems engineer”), which curriculum often includes business classes like Micro/Macro economics, financial accounting, etc. ISE is a fairly wide field, and it can includes financial engineering, Pharmaceutical/Biomedical and healthcare systems.

Business administration is a common minor(useful in business process consulting), as is computer sciences, math and statistics.

I don’t recommend the dual degree, since it doesn’t really buy you anything. Your engineering degree can get you any jobs you may want. Finance and accounting are also fairly (time and effort) intensive, your time would be better spent on your engineering classes (and keeping your GPA up).

A minor, on the other hand, is a way to focus some of your electives. If you want to do business as a minor, check to see what your school has available. In general, Business Administration works best, but if you’re trying to focus more on “financial engineering”, or may want to apply for a masters program in finance or accounting, then a minor in these two may make sense.

Then again, getting a minor in finance or accounting isn’t an easy path, so you really need to have a solid reason for it, before you make that leap. Business administration, on the other hand, will give you a few “easier” courses to take, while you’re completing your ISE degree.

If you like programing, think about a minor in CS (it’s fairly popular with ISE’s, as is Business). Same with math or statistics.

Your advisor at school should be able to tell you the minors typically taken by other ISE’s.

Good Luck!

If I plan on getting my Masters for Systems Engineering does it make the Bachelors in Business worth it? You don’t think it will make me more marketable when I graduate?

The business major won’t make you more marketable for engineering jobs, and the engineering masters won’t make you more marketable for business jobs. There are jobs that benefit from knowledge of the other side but they don’t generally pay better until the word “management” is in the title, and at that point you are years past school and you’ve forgotten (it is at least assumed) any unused stuff from college.

Seriously, if you want to be an engineer, study to be an engineer. If at some point you want to switch partly or wholly to business, expand your education at that time.

Say I’m torn between the two. Would it be better to go for both now so I don’t have to make up for lost time when I decide or would it be better to just stick with engineering for now (which is what I am leaning towards and already completed two semesters) even though I am not completely sure if I want to do engineering or business?

Think about this: someone with an engineering degree can get a job in business, or at least take business courses/certifications to transition into the business world. But someone with a business degree can never become an engineer unless they first get an engineering degree.

The M.S program for Systems Engineers at my school is a Masters Degree in Engineering Management because technically my major department is call Systems Engineering and Engineering Management (SEEM), so that’s another reason I was thinking Management, Finance, Accounting, Economics, etc would be a good supplement.

Imagine you are a hiring manager for an engineering company. You get a stack of resumes for an opening for a technical position on your team. You have a bunch of resumes from people that have engineering backgrounds with various technical electives, many of which are relevant to the work you are doing. You also have a resume from someone with a minor (or second major) in management, and you know that minor likely took the place of one or more classes that might have contributed to that person’s technical skill. Who are you going to hire?

It is far, far easier to go from engineering to business than the other way around. If you are unsure but think you would like engineering, start in engineering. Your risk of lost time is FAR greater if you start in business and decide later you want to be in engineering.

First, ignore the titles. Colleges pick program titles in part to attract people, they often have little to do with the jobs you can actually get with them!

Second, ignore grad programs! Undergrad programs with “management” in their title feed into routine business jobs that are not actually managing anything. SOME grad programs are the same, but many are designed for mid-career professionals actually moving into management, and systems engineering is typically one of these. Many engineers start out with an undergrad degree in a technology discipline and start work down at the subsystem level. When they get promoted, they not only need management skills but they also need to understand principles of systems engineering that they never needed before, and so SE grad programs often try to fill both needs. That’s great for mid-career professionals, not great for undergrads.

OP, are you attending UNC-Charlotte? If so, forget about the master’s program, that’s really for experienced engineers making the transition for engineering to management.

The “systems engineering” BSSE program is very much an “industrial and system” engineering major. It already has two “concentrations”. The “Engineering Management” concentration is really a OM/Supply chain focus. Either of these two concentrations are fine (as is the option to take 4 tech electives instead of choosing a concentration), based on your interest.

A hiring manager isn’t going to hold it against you that you’ve taken an intro to engineering management class.

http://seem.uncc.edu/undergraduate-program/concentrations-and-electives

It doesn’t look like UNC-C offers a minor in Business administration, finance or accounting. However, you can take classes in each of these fields, via your tech electives.

If you decide on getting a masters in Industrial Engineering, you will need to attend another school (which is not a bad thing). At this point, it’s too early to worry about that (other than keeping your GPA up), figure out which concentration you want (or if you just want to choose 4 tech electives), and if you want to add a minor like CS, Math or Statistics (all which are offered at UNC-C). If you add a minor, you may want to pass on the concentration and use as many of the 4 tech electives as you can to support the minor. An advisor at school can help you work through those details.

Good Luck!!

Yes I do attend UNCC! That was also one of my problems that they don’t offer a minor in finance or accounting, which is why i was considering the dual major or minoring in Operations and Supply Chain Management or Economics. But, yes I was planning on concentrating in Engineering Management until I heard they might be starting a new Lean Six Sigma concentration. I might consider that. Why is the grad program mainly for experienced engineers? Why wouldn’t it be a good ides to start right after undergrad?

Because who is going to hire an engineering manager who has never worked as an engineer?

Thank you everyone for your insight it was very helpful!

A typical career path, is to work for several years as an engineer, before becoming an “engineer manager”. At that point, some additional management training would be viewed as a plus. I think you’ll find many folks taking that master’s program are folks that have been working for a few years and are taking it as a “distance learning” class.

Nothing wrong with a Lean/Six Sigma concentration, but you would want to take a look at which classes make up the concentration.

Good Luck!

When I was the hiring manager, I’d hire engineering degreed people and round file any dual majors that included business. A course or two was OK but I wanted engineers.

An engineering manager has to be well schooled in engineering before becoming a manager. Besides, engineering management isn’t really business its people management, a totally different skill.

My company would hire business people to handle the business side of things. If you want to go into the business side, then do so.

My Mech Eng program required econ (macro and micro) and a basic management class. That was probably a good thing because I might not have selected them on my own and they have occasionally been helpful. However I don’t see value to having a lot of business courses.

I also had to take a class that covered micro and macro econ as part of my engineering degree.

I also took another econ class on labor management that covered the history of unions and how they operate within today’s companies. And one more in a similar vain but not a econ class per se; a class in manufacturing management.

The econ classes were also part of my “humanities” requirement that every engineering student I know of had to pass. The manufacturing management class was fun and I thought it might be useful. It was to some limited amount in my career. I certainly wouldn’t consider these classes anything near completing a business major or minor and wouldn’t penalize an applicant in any way for those or similar classes.

My disdain for majors and minors in business for engineers is more the attitude of the applicant once they start working in engineering. I worked with (and managed when I was assigned to take on some additional people into my group) a couple of those double majors and they always were looking for more “management” work to do. They hadn’t learned the engineering and hadn’t taken classes in and didn’t possess good people skills. So they were totally unprepared to do any “engineering management”. The classes they had taken were on the business end of things, which we didn’t do any of that in my group. So, I had no “management” work for them to do and had to listen to them whine about their believing that they were getting poor assignments. All the while they were doing a poor job at engineering. My company had a “pay for performance” system of deciding raises. They got appropriate raises and it was a lot better for everyone concerned after they quit.

@HPuck35 so you wouldn’t hold it against the applicant if they pursued a number of econ courses simply for enrichment? I myself been trying to decide what to complement my engineering degree with and while I wait to hear back on a research position I applied for, I’ve been debating the business vs econ “minor” track. However after reading different threads it seems like some see minors as overkill/unnecessary and I’m surprised to hear some managers dislike business minors. I was always led on by peers that they thought it gave them a leg up in engineering hiring because they’re “well-rounded”…

I’m just interested to hear what you think if someone was to fill 1 econ class a semester or every other semester simply out of an interest?