Best business majors?

<p>What would be the best business majors to get into?
From my research, accounting is the best and finance is second.
Apparently, accounting has stable career options after college while finance does not?
Is this true?
In your opinion, what would be other good business majors to get into as of right now?
Also in terms of ranking in difficulty, is accounting harder than finance?</p>

<p>So your research didn’t turn up anything about MIS? As long as you stay away from business administration and marketing you’re gold.</p>

<p>What do you want to do with your life? </p>

<p>The functional area you enjoy the least is the hardest. I had my hardest time with statistics while finance accounting and risk management were a breeze. Operations management is still somewhat of a mystery. I enjoyed my business law classes and marketing was never exciting. I hated HR. I still do but I jut got an A- in that. I guess I’ve matured since undergrad. Econ is not business but it is related and I had a lot of econ for my finance requirement. You can do actuary or MIS. I’m not a computer guy so while I find MIS easy it’s boring to me. Insurance is finance but different. Real estate is a finance field too. Actuary is measurement of risk so it’s like insurance but heavy math beyond the calculus one you find in finance. Strategic management is undefined in my opinion but necessary. </p>

<p>Take whatever you enjoy. If you don’t like it switch majors.</p>

<p>I’d agree with you trantrios.
With accounting you can do nearly everything in business.
With finance, you can do nearly everything except accounting.</p>

<p>I myself am doing Finance and Operations research.</p>

<p>As far as which one is more difficult…tough to say.
The consensus is that accounting is more difficult but my sister (who majored in accounting) said that her hardest class was a Finance one.</p>

<p>And like inmotion said, as long as its not Business administration or marketing you are set (side note: my cousin did business administration and he is doing marketing. He got a Suite for the Superbowl…so there are exceptions to the rule).</p>

<p>And I don’t know if the school you are going to/looking into has this…but have you ever thought of business with a concentration in the health sector? Should be a rapidly growing field.</p>

<p>[Overall</a> Undergraduate Salaries 2008 - BBA - McCombs Career Services - The McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin](<a href=“http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/career/bba/bba09_salary.asp]Overall”>http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/career/bba/bba09_salary.asp)</p>

<p>So if I was purely chasing cash, which should I get? I’m a pretty shallow person, I have no problem giving up morals for money. Willing to take advantage of people and I believe that those at the top deserve to control the rest. Overall, a pretty heartless, ruthless and cutthroat guy.</p>

<p>Is corporate the right path for me?</p>

<p>^^^Definitely sociology.</p>

<p>Try crime syndicate. You have the makings of a sociopath.</p>

<p>I like people, I just like what I can get out of them more…</p>

<p>Pirate or Goldman Sachs ■■■■■… Same thing.</p>

<p>@Tortfeasor I disagree with you when you say Econ is not business. You can apply microeconomics thought and techniques to Risk analysis, Production analysis, Pricing analysis, and Capital budgeting. Also game theory, financial economics, business forecasting, and industrial economics plays important roles in business. </p>

<p>Accounting is a good major but many lower level accounting jobs are being sent overseas though there still are many out there. The new trend is to outsource them. </p>

<p>Finance is always a good major. You can do a lot with it.</p>

<p>You can apply algebra to business too. That doesn’t make algebra business. Algebra is a tool like economics. Like statistics, English (any common language), writing, art, psychology, anthropology, history; all of these have applications in business, but they are not business.</p>

<p>^ Better yet if a field can be practiced independently of business, it is not business. You can’t practice finance or marketing independently of business. You can be an economist and never do business. It’s the same with English and statistics.</p>

<p>Technically you can do finance and marketing with out ever doing business. </p>

<p>Still you should not say it is not business.</p>

<p>What would you all say is more useful: a degree in general finance, or a degree in specialized field of finance? I ask because UT Austin offers several different tracks within finance such as corporate finance, investment management, financial markets, energy finance etc. I’m interested in attending law school after getting my BBA, but in case those plans don’t work out, I also don’t want to be pigeonholed to an industry if I go the more specialized path. Any thoughts?</p>

<p>Man, energy finance and investment management sound bad *** to me. I would think that financial markets and investment management would get you roughly the same jobs. Obviously, you should do energy finance if you want to work in the energy industry (this would be a good choice IMO). Corporate finance is for people like SDTash whose sole concern is making money for the organization. I think you should specialize if one of the specialization fields really interests you. If not, then do the general degree, but you need to know what industry and sector you want to work in.</p>

<p>I don’t think you will be pigeonholed as long as you know how to tailor your resume. If you want to work in the industry you specialized in then you would emphasize to the employer that specialization. If you wanted to work for a different industry you would switch to selling yourself as a general finance expert.</p>

<p>Everything could be considered business and business could be considered just about anything. Anytime you, a company, or the government conducts any type of transaction you are engaging in business. It has simply too broad of a definition to have that kind of argument. That is why the business management degree is so stupid.</p>

<p>[Positive</a> Hiring Stats for Accounting, Finance Undergrads - BusinessWeek](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>

<p>“Engineers commanded the highest salary offers, averaging $56,367, followed by accounting at $50,402, and financial services at $49,703. But of those sectors, only accountants received higher average starting salary offers this year than in 2009. This isn’t surprising to Amy Thompson, director of campus recruiting at accounting and financial services provider PricewaterhouseCoopers. “We have a solid book of business that exists kind of regardless of economic situation,” she says. PwC hired slightly fewer graduates during the downturn, but expects to increase hiring in 2011, primarily of students with bachelor’s degrees in accounting, Thompson says.”</p>

<p>"In the financial services sector, typical starting salary offers are down nearly $1,500, says Andrea Koncz, employment information manager at NACE. A year ago, the average starting salary offered by financial services firms was $51,190. New grads were offered salaries near the national median for workers of all experience levels with bachelor’s degrees, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.</p>

<p>Employers favored 2010 bachelor’s degree graduates with job-oriented courses of study, according to the NACE report. Accounting service firms mostly sought to hire accounting majors, while finance companies made the bulk of their offers to finance and accounting majors."</p>

<p>You are thinking about the question backwards. </p>

<p>Engineering majors may make the highest average salary of any major, but that 56,367 is below the average salaries from McCombs for investment banking and consulting. </p>

<p>You could probably go down either of those career paths as an engineer, but not without substantial business knowledge for the technical questions and case interviews respectively. </p>

<p>Figure out what you want to do post-college and then put yourself in the best position possible to land that job. </p>

<p>Based on your suggested personality, I’d recommend banking.</p>