Business Major at The College at U of C?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
41

I haven’t looked, but I bet you are wrong about that. There’s Wharton, of course, and the business program in the College Formerly Known As The Ag School at Cornell, and Course 15 at MIT, but all of those have a very different philosophical approach to undergraduate education than the University of Chicago. There are lots of colleges with undergraduate business schools, but they don’t count for these purposes; they haven’t spent the last 125 years pontificating about liberal arts education. On the CTA system, Northwestern has some sort of Kellogg certificate program, but it has very carefully stayed away from any major that is labeled “Business.” Most critically, you are not going to find anything remotely similar at Harvard, Yale, or Stanford . . . the crew Chicago usually likes to hang with (except for sometimes adopting a holier than thou attitude about their supposed pre-professionalism). I’m guessing that Columbia and Brown are similar.

I bet you are wrong about that, too. Not necessarily about HYPS – I think that statement would be accurate, or close to it, as applied to my class at least – but about the University of Chicago. The number of UChicago graduates applying to medical school or law school in any year doesn’t begin to approach a majority of graduates, much less a “vast” majority. According to the "Careers In . . . " website, about 100-125 students and alumni apply to medical school every year. Some of those are likely repeats, and they are not all successful. They used to, but no longer do, have numbers on law school applicants, and they weren’t much larger than that, maybe 150, not all of whom actually went to law school. They don’t have business school application numbers, either, and those would be trickier to follow anyway, but there would have to be a heck of a lot of them to get anywhere near your blanket statement.

Anecdotally, my kids’ UChicago friends include one MD (my daughter-in-law), maybe three lawyers so far, and 0 MBAs. Then there’s a friend’s child, whom my kids despised, who’s a JD/MBA. Most of their friends have some sort of graduate degree at this point, but it’s generally not in medicine, law, or business. I’m sure they’re not precisely representative of the average UChicago experience, but the difference vs. my experience or my wife’s (from a very different social circle) is really striking. Of all the people I ever roomed with – n = 12, counting me – the only ones who didn’t have a JD, MD, or MBA eight years after our graduation were two who never finished college because of substance abuse problems and a computer science major who was also schizophrenic. The equivalent for my children, combined, same n = 12, is 0 of such degrees. And no drop-outs or diagnosed mental illness.

42

An outside perspective: as a former econ major elsewhere who was aimless (not to mention clueless) during the college years, even though I probably would have stayed with the regular, I wonder whether the existence of a business econ major would have sparked some self-reflection. Regardless, certainly I wish someone would have suggested U of C, which wasn’t on my radar until later.

My high school junior received some spam mail from Northwestern last week that, shockingly, prompted us to look at the website. NU’s multiple business-related certificate options were attractive for an undecided student (maybe math/physics) who wants the opportunity to take some business courses but not a full-fledged undergrad business degree. That opportunity was so important to her that we have avoided looking at any colleges without an undergrad B-school and I’m glad there may be more options than we originally realized. I find myself surprised that basic marketing (the “and” campaign) spoke so well to undecided kiddo who’d like to minor in a million things.

I wonder whether a business econ major at U of C would prompt other, non-econ undergrads to take a few business courses and what limits there might be.

43

“I haven’t looked, but I bet you are wrong about that. There’s Wharton, of course, and the business program in the College Formerly Known As The Ag School at Cornell, and Course 15 at MIT, but all of those have a very different philosophical approach to undergraduate education than the University of Chicago. There are lots of colleges with undergraduate business schools, but they don’t count for these purposes; they haven’t spent the last 125 years pontificating about liberal arts education.”

No one is talking about Wharton, MIT or Cornell - or any undergrad business programs. What about Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford? You can’t take courses in financial or cost accounting or corporate finance? (I haven’t checked either).

“Northwestern has some sort of Kellogg certificate program, but it has very carefully stayed away from any major that is labeled “Business.””

Yes - they all have. That was my point. They might offer the same courses, just not bundled. UChicago is unique there. Perhaps a trand-setter? We shall see.

“The number of UChicago graduates applying to medical school or law school in any year doesn’t begin to approach a majority of graduates, much less a “vast” majority.”

I didn’t say “a vast majority of graduates” I said the vast majority who go on to grad work. Is that true or not? Last time I checked it was true.

44

"There are lots of colleges with undergraduate business schools, but they don’t count for these purposes; they haven’t spent the last 125 years pontificating about liberal arts education. "

There seems to be some some confusion about what a liberal arts education actually is. Unless UChicago is offering a different degree than the BA or BS, and/or unless they are requiring a different breakdown of curriculum from (roughly) one-third Core, one-third electives, one-third major, they will be offering a liberal arts education with this new Bus. Econ. major. Professional programs do NOT limit your major to 1/3 of your total curriculum. It’s usually flipped 1/3 Gen. Ed, 2/3 within the college of business/Engineering, etc (including all pre-reqs). YMMV but that’s generally the difference between Liberal Arts and Professional. Whether you take an accounting, business econ. or corp. finance course is immaterial and no more determinant than if someone took a technical course in chemistry, physics, stats or CS.

45

“I wonder whether a business econ major at U of C would prompt other, non-econ undergrads to take a few business courses and what limits there might be.”

@evergreen5 my hubby and I are theorizing that one goal is to get more women to major in economics. That’s another outcome I didn’t mention above. It’s been consistently 2:1 male: female for a few years now, IIRC (that ratio did seem to drop a tad this past graduating class). What we heard from someone in the econ. department last spring is that women start as econ majors, then switch out because they don’t care for the heavy theory. UChicago Econ. will never lay up on that, of course, but the business option might be a bit more “hands on” and directly applicable - and therefore a bit more useful - in the eyes of those who would otherwise drop the major. This is just speculation, mind you - no one said that’s why they are introducing the major. But it’s possible that the College sees a nuanced path that will increase the attraction for students and equalize the gender ratios a bit.

46

I looked a little bit at HYPS. (Really YPS, H was hard to survey.) The differences are pretty striking, actually.

Only Princeton offers an undergraduate course (one) in Financial Accounting. (That was somewhat surprising to me. As a Yale undergraduate, I took three accounting courses – Intro Financial Accounting, Managerial (Cost) Accounting, and Corporate Finance. They were offered in the Econ department, and I think one of the two intermediate courses could count towards an Econ major, but there were no Econ requirements for any of them. Nothing like that is offered anymore at Yale.) I couldn’t tell whether any of them have the equivalent of Chicago’s undergraduate sections of the B-School financial accounting course, except Stanford makes clear that undergraduates cannot enroll in the Business School introductory Financial Accounting course…

Everyone has one or more courses on Finance (math oriented) and Asset Pricing, Financial Markets, things like that. Stanford notably has the most restricted, least practical set of course offerings eligible for credit towards an Economics degree. Yale, by contrast, has a bunch of upper-level and intermediate courses with titles like “Investment Analysis,” “Private Equity Investing,” “Designing the Digital Economy,” “Market Inefficiencies and Arbitrage,” “Debt Investing”. The core of everyone’s major is rigorously theoretical and tools-oriented, but there are enough in-major electives to build up a track record in business-oriented topics (except at Stanford).

No one, however, offers management or marketing courses to undergraduates, as far as I could tell, or gives credit in them towards an Economics major. Of course, Princeton has a popular, high-quality Operations Research major, many of the courses in which can count towards an Econ major. (Princeton also has an interesting rule that you can’t take MORE than 12 courses in your major department above the intro level and count them towards your degree. But the Economics department helpfully suggests Operations Research courses that parallel Economics courses and can be taken without counting towards the limit.)

47

@JBStillFlying Interesting thought. 30 yrs ago at my college, the gender ratio in econ seemed even - I am female and never noticed any imbalance. However, that college also has an undergrad business school that leans more heavily guys. Here is what I found for current data at my alma matter: the arts and sciences school is 53% women and econ is the most popular major there (about one-fifth of a&s). The undergrad b-school is only 34% women (econ is offered there too, but a much smaller fraction concentrate in econ). My understanding is that generally, the increased selectivity of the b-school involves math rigor, though I have a hard time believing that’s responsible for women shying away.

As for the heavy theory, that’s when econ finally starts getting interesting! Hypothetically though, along with the undergrad b-school example above, suppose heavier math had something to do with women switching away from econ, as that’s about the time econometrics comes into play (please say no).

48

Anyway, I stand by my statement that the Chicago proposal is a big leap beyond what its peers are doing (although not necessarily such a big leap beyond Northwestern’s Kellogg Certificate programs), while acknowledging that @JBStillFlying is right that, for the most part, an undergraduate at the key peer colleges can cobble together something that comes close, as Chicago students do today, but without the business-school branding.

49

@JHS at #45 - interesting. Never heard of a marketing course being offered at the undergrad. level for a liberal arts education, but have seen financial economics, accounting, op. research, IO, international, policy etc. offered as topics/electives. Some game theory courses had management applications to them (but of course that topic can also apply to a variety of fields including political science).

50

UChicago doing something that is a big leap beyond what peers are doing seems about par for the course for UChicago these days. But where else could we have so many interesting and time-wasting CC discussions? :smiley:

51

@evergreen5: would be shocked if Bus. Econ. wasn’t incredibly rigorous in its own way. It should definitely include courses in stats and econometrics. Perhaps the deal breaker is Real Analysis. Never had to take that at Booth, myself! :wink:

52

As far as I could tell from my brief review, all of the colleges I looked at had an econometrics requirement for Econ majors, and most had some statistics requirement, too.

Real analysis seems not to be required so much as encouraged at Chicago. There are various upper-level courses for which one or the other of the first two quarters is a requirement. In fact, they just dropped the strict requirement for a linear algebra class (which the first quarter of real analysis would meet), giving students an alternate path through the major that avoids more engagement with the Math Department.

53

@jhs “ that undergraduate education should not be “practical,” in the sense of teaching skills that were specific to identifiable skilled positions in the market economy. It was, of course, also an article of faith – and a strong one – that the more general, methodological skills taught at the University, together with a thorough grounding in the mainstream of Western culture, had value in the real world, and would help graduates perform well – and better than well – in skilled positions in the market economy.”

I so agree with this. I’m sure whatever endeavors the kids take on they’ll be successful due to thorough grounding in overall education. Getting breadth of education would trump getting some sort of skills one can acquire via certificate programs or some such (except for coding or engineering).

Anyway, this is only a major they’re deliberating on, not some sort of specialized undergrad business school, which I’m not sure I’d be on board for. As I’ve said, the kids can learn to read financial statements and balance sheets while on the job like everyone else, but not while they’re in college. I think that would be way too vocational.

54

@uofcparent: Oh dear, then I guess you wouldn’t approve of an econometrics project that makes use of financial statement numbers as part of the data set :slight_smile:

Wondering what you think about computer programming - is that too vocational for college?

There may have been a time - long ago - when anything dealing with data, statistics or computers would not have been considered liberal arts. Would hate to think that UChicago lacked an understanding of how modern tools and data can advance the cause of wisdom. Stopping your education at GAAP accounting is one thing. Learning how to interpret the data in a financial statement is quite another.

55

“they haven’t spent the last 125 years pontificating about liberal arts education.”

You guys are overestimating that timeline. Booth started as an undergrad school in 1898 named the “College of Commerce and Politics” - much like the London School of Economics and Political Science is now within University of London.

I say your 125 years of “pure” tradition looking down on preprofessional studies is bunk.

56

That’s probably true. It may be only 85 years or so. None of us was around and paying attention when it started, so it seems like time immemorial.

57

@jbstillflying I don’t know what that project would entail, but if it’ll expose students to critical thinking or something new they haven’t seen before, etc., I say I approve! but not sure I’d be totally on board with extended learning on accounting and balancing a ledger, that being said, I’m not even really concerned about the business major nor would I want to micromanage which disciplines UChicago deem appropriate for their majors. Either way, I’m sure my S will receive a quality education and should he want to enhance his stay at university by adding some personal passions—or what we’re calling a ‘major’–by all means, go at it, little one!

Yes, computer programming would be too vocational for my S! But not for others obviously, but that’s all personal choice and interest of course.

Anyway, whatever UChicago decides to do, it’ll be—to put it colloquially—cool! To quote @cue123:

“ UChicago is coming into the STEM world (really the TE part, they were already strong in SM) with, IMO, the absolutely correct strategy. Instead of the traditional engineering, they are using areas they are already strong in to build a cutting edge engineering program leaving the civil/mechanical/electrical/etc. to those who are already strong in it. If you want to know where tech and engineering are heading, its straight into the AI and quantum computing world. Both of which UChicago is heavily investing in via the CS and molecular engineering programs.”

‘Molecular engineering and AI and quantum computing world’-- that just sounds cool!

(Excuse all the fangirling on UChicago, but I’m really biased right now.)

58

Who set the agenda of U of C? Of course, that will be neither you and me nor anyone on CC. That will be the job of the University Trustees.

“Members of the Board play an integral role by providing oversight and input regarding the University’s large scale programmatic goals and its financial and physical resources, and by advocating for the University locally, nationally, and throughout the world.”

https://trustees.uchicago.edu/page/university-trustees

I just quickly go over that list. I count at least 9 billionaire. Half of the Board of Trustees are from investment and finance. 40% got their MBA from GSB. I really don’t see too many trustees from humanities or pure science. So should we be surprised that the university has been pivoting away from pure liberal arts education between 1950’s and 1980’s towards a more “practical” undergrad degree?

59

Yes, agree! if they can make Bus. Econ. similar to Molec. Eng. in terms of adherence to UChicago’s strengths and attention to cutting edge, bypassing the traditional “vocational” approach, that’s going to be a huge success.

@uocparent

60

Heh heh just chuckling at the thought of some current or prospective student clicking on this thread hoping for a tidbit on ‘business major’ but getting an earful of our discussion instead ;).