<p>Wondering what I should study if I'd like to do i-banking or at least finance related work after graduation. I know all engin majors will qualify for most finance jobs but I'd like to know what's the best. Thanks!</p>
<p>The answer is pretty obvious...</p>
<p>IEOR is relevant to business, otherwise it doesn't matter.</p>
<p>I agree that IEOR is probably the most relevant.</p>
<p>CS is also quite relevant, especially if you want to get into quant finance.</p>
<p>Some engineering schools have an "applied math" major. That's a good one that gives you extra elective room get a CS minor.</p>
<p>IEOR is exactly what i was considering. only concern is i hope i'll still be able to find a job in engineering with an IEOR degree if i can't find a job in i-banking (i.e. due to bad economy). </p>
<p>my engineering school doesn't offer an "applied math" major or minor in CS. but it does have a highly ranked IE program.</p>
<p>It depends on which school you go to. Ibanks tend to be pretty selective of the ivies, MIT, Stern, Stanford, and maybe Duke. An engineering major at any of those places will be in good shape for an ibanking gig. If you go to somewhere like Columbia, I don't think the specific type of engineering matters so much. If you're qualified, most ibanks will pick you up anyways. This means that if you did IEOR at Columbia, I don't think your chances are a whole lot better than if you did MechE there instead. Obviously, it can't hurt to do IEOR if you're set on banking. A EECS degree leaves you a lot of exit opps, and can help with getting into a hedge fund. However, getting a MechE degree won't really hurt you a whole bunch, and in no way is EE strictly better than any other standard type of engineering.</p>
<p>From what I've heard the bigger deal is that you actually do engineering in general (because the line of thinking is that engineers know how to work hard and long when necessary, and have very good problem solving skills; ie stuff thats much harder to teach to business majors. You can teach an engineer about finance, but its much tougher to teach a finance major about problem solving skills. This is a gross generalization, but it's what I've gathered) The fact that you picked MechE over ChemE or BioE or something similar doesn't play a huge role.</p>
<p>GE can also be a good choice.</p>
<p>GE is a competitive company. How do (engineering) employers in general feel about an IEOR degree?</p>
<p>Mr 100% i think he means "general engineering", some colleges offer a major like that.</p>
<p>last time you mistook MEng (Masters in Engineering) for Materials Engineering (Mat E).</p>
<p>and I think you're a little obsessed with this "what will they think/ is this degree useful "</p>
<p>oh, oops. well my school doesn't offer general engineering and I don't think that IEOR is similar to general engineering. anyhow, does anyone have an answer to my question? thanks!</p>
<p>the only problem w/ IE is that its made fun off by eng students, even faculty because IE basically isn't "pure engineering"...</p>
<p>most IE people eventually go into management, since IE is so much like it. None of them become real "engineers".</p>
<p>well that's an engineering campus rumor/joke. since engineering requires an understanding of highly abstract concepts and a lot of hard work, i can see why engineers make fun of arguably easier majors like liberal arts, business, or IE in this case to make themselves feel better. i'm an engineering student too and i do get jealous when i see other students have a much easier time in college. </p>
<p>i think i've passed the point where i no longer care about what the hardcore or "real" engineers think. i just want a career in business, management, or finance (with a fall back in engineering). i've been deciding between ME and IE. ME is a "real" engineering major but its average salaries are lower than IE's both at UCB and UMich. well, that says something about real engineering.</p>
<p>Since you're interested in entering the business side, major in IE.
simple as that.</p>
<p>I believe CS is your best bet.</p>
<p>I want to be a quant, so I am doing Cse and hopefully plan to get a MBA or a financial engineering degree.</p>
<p>My cousin graduated w/ a B.S. in Chem E 5 or 6 years ago.
He works in the financial field now.</p>
<p>"ME is a "real" engineering major but its average salaries are lower than IE's both at UCB and UMich. well, that says something about real engineering."</p>
<p>Most of those MEs went for real engineering jobs, whereas the IEs went into other industries as well.</p>
<p>Engineers don't really get paid much. You should only enter this field if you actually love it.</p>
<p>"Real" engineers get a decent starting salary, but, imo, they cap very quickly relative to that of a businessperson or that of one working in the medical field. Indeed, one should only be an engineer if it is his/her passion.</p>
<p>"well that's an engineering campus rumor/joke. since engineering requires an understanding of highly abstract concepts and a lot of hard work, i can see why engineers make fun of arguably easier majors like liberal arts, business, or IE in this case to make themselves feel better. i'm an engineering student too and i do get jealous when i see other students have a much easier time in college.</p>
<p>i think i've passed the point where i no longer care about what the hardcore or "real" engineers think. i just want a career in business, management, or finance (with a fall back in engineering). i've been deciding between ME and IE. ME is a "real" engineering major but its average salaries are lower than IE's both at UCB and UMich. well, that says something about real engineering."</p>
<p>"Today, organizations from every sector of our economy banking,
food, energy, health care, commercial aviation, textiles, and governmentturn to industrial engineers for help in improving their productivity. Furthermore, as the technology of an industry becomes more sophisticated, the industrial engineers who inform and guide the managers of these organizations often are called upon to become managers themselves. In short, industrial engineers
are systems integrators and productivity enhancers."</p>
<p>
[quote]
well that's an engineering campus rumor/joke. since engineering requires an understanding of highly abstract concepts and a lot of hard work
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yet I think it should be pointed out that engineering * does not necessarily* require a greater understanding of abstract concepts and harder work than do other disciplines.</p>
<p>For example, when it comes to abstract concepts, engineering doesn't compare to, say, philosophy. Honestly, what's more abstract than philosophy? Yet you never hear of philosophy classes flunking out huge percentages of their undergrads. Why not? </p>
<p>And what of the necessity for hard work? Why can't those other humanities and social sciences be made harder? In fact, most schools do in fact run extremely difficult and time-consuming humanities/soc-science programs...but for their PhD students. I would say that it requires just as much work, if not more work, to complete a PhD in the social sciences or especially in the humanities as it does to complete a PhD in engineering. For example, I know some brilliand and hard-working people who have spent more than 10 years working on their PhD's in various humanities disciplines and still haven't graduated yet. An engineering PhD almost never takes that long. {For example, the normative time to complete a PhD in such fields as classics, comparative literature, Ancient History/Mediterranean Archaeology, or Buddhist Studies at Berkeley is 14 semesters, or 7 years, and many people take a lot longer than that. On the other hand, the normative time of completion for a PhD in the College of Engineering at Berkeley is 10 semesters, or 5 years.}</p>
<p>Classics</a> Graduate Programs - UC Berkeley Classics Department
Graduate</a> Program--Requirements
Graduate</a> Program - Buddhist Studies - University of California, Berkeley
<a href="http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/ahma/pdf/ahma_handbook_2007_08.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/ahma/pdf/ahma_handbook_2007_08.pdf</a>
UC</a> Berkeley Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering</p>
<p>Hence, the point is, humanities and social science departments can and do demand extremely high standards and a lot of hard work from students. They just do so from their PhD students. For some arbitrary reason, they simply choose not to demand much from their undergrads. {Now, obviously I am not asking for them to demand as much from their undergrads as they do from their PhD students, but what I am saying is that they can demand more than they do now. } Engineering departments, on the other hand, for some other equally arbitrary reason, demand much more from their undergrads. It doesn't have to be this way. These were all just arbitrary decisions made by various disciplines a long time ago.</p>
<p>sakky, who the hell are you, such good points again and again and again. My three friends and I came to the US same month in 1978 to Milwaukee, two of my friends went to a PHD program in English, one went into a PhD in mechanical engineering, I went to a PhD in psychology, I graduated in 1984, the mech engineer graduated in 1982 (he was done by Dec 81 but the degree was conferred at Commencement May 82) the other two English PhDs languished, that's the word, until 1987, then dropped out and went back to India where they are teaching in a boarding school.</p>
<p>I see this played out again and again. However, I doubt philosophy is as difficult as undergrad engineering or math etc, maybe some aspects of analytic philosophy. A senior admissions officer at Harvard told us when we visited last year, "We believe that an undergrad major in Latin is as demanding as an undergrad major in any scientific discipline" and she was referring globally to the fact that any subject can be taught, well, almost any subject, can be taught in a demanding manner. So you may have a point.</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, I doubt philosophy is as difficult as undergrad engineering or math etc, maybe some aspects of analytic philosophy.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree that you are correct in the way these disciplines are taught at the undergrad level right now.</p>
<p>But my point is, it doesn't HAVE to be that way. Take the case of engineering. I am convinced that a lot of difficulty involved in an undergrad engineering degree program is simply unnecessary. If all you want to do is work as a practicing engineering, you just don't need to know a lot of the topics that you are forced to learn. Sure, you need to learn the general concepts, you need to know the hands-on lab work, you need to learn some quantitative analysis, but I don't think you really need to know the extrordinarily involved step-by-step mathematical modeling and formulation. </p>
<p>For example, I am convinced that the vast majority of practicing chemical engineers do not need to know how to derive the Maxwell relations of thermodynamic potentials, or even what the Maxwell relations are. I used to work with a lot of chemical engineers, and not once have the Maxwell relations, or even the notion of a thermodynamic potential, ever come up as a topic of conversation. Not even once.</p>
<p>Now, don't get me wrong. If some of those engineers want to learn those topics, I am not preventing them from doing so. I simply question why all undergrad engineers are forced to learn these topics that they don't need and will never use. I also agree that if you want to earn a PhD in engineering to become a reseracher, you probably need to know this stuff. But let's face it. Most undergrad engineers do not intend to get PhD's. For those that do, you can offer these classes as electives so you don't have to force everybody to take them.</p>