Does anybody have insight as to the differences between the Economics concentration and the Business, Entrepreneurship and Organizations concentration. I am interested in business and want to decide which would be better for me.
Based on the career data here: https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/careerlab/index.php?q=post_grad_data/list, it seems that the Econ program leads to substantially more prestigious jobs.
Is this because recruiting at Brown is concentration based, or is it because the BEO students just have different interests? Do companies significantly value Econ concentrators vs BEO concentrators? Thank you.
Don’t take what I am about to say as gospel, because I don’t know that much about these two majors. But here’s what I think.
The BEO major is relatively new. It grew out of the Engineering Department. For awhile it was considered a “gut” major – the rumor was that athletes went this route. I have no idea if it is still considered easy, but it is the closest thing Brown has to a “business” major which many people think is a weak major compared to studying the liberal arts.
Economics has been around for decades. Brown has a very strong econ department and it’s well-known in the business world. Economics is heavily math based (you need to know calculus). A lot of econ majors are recruited to work at investment banks/consulting firms because of their deep knowledge of math.
I think if your interest is in entrepreneurship – you want to start a business, work at a start-up, that sort of thing – then BEO would fit your needs. If you want to go into investment banking or consulting, economics (or even stronger, Applied Math-Economics, or CS/Applied Math) is better.
I think that Econ isn’t really a Business degree. It’s very much Math heavy, as @fireandrain said before, and can be difficult for people who don’t know that. That being said, I think that it can lead to great careers in business, because it gives you great fundamental understandings.
Don’t know what employers think of BEO, but on campus it is generally still viewed as a soft, interdisciplinary major. I would think that anyone serious about business would study something more rigorous like econ, computer science, or applied math.