Business Major: Questionable Value?

College Majors Business Major
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<p>Goalsoriented - For whatever reason, many of the most esteemed/regular posters on CC have a background in accounting, and thus some of the career advice will have an accounting slant. It is true that accounting (and actuarial science) have probably the most linear and career-oriented tracks of any other major. But that’s far from saying other majors are mashed into a giant primordial ooze where there’s no differentiation (nobody’s claimed that, but it seems like that’s the impression you’re getting).</p>

<p>You seem like an intelligent, driven person that writes well. I don’t think coming from a rural, less known school killed your career chances, but it certainly didn’t help. If I had a hunch though, the culprit may be your resume, which is the most common stealthy application killer. Have you attended workshops?</p>

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<p>CollectivSynergy, obviously I have an accounting slant with the name “Taxguy.” However, I have always posted that there are many other careers that produce great, high paying jobs and good successful careers. I would be just as happy if my kids majored in: hard science, engineering, medicine, any health care related occupation such as physical or occupational therapy, applied art, applied math, computer science or software engineering,interior design, just to name a few. I just recommended that they don’t major in a liberal arts. However, I strongly suggested,however, that they should take a lot of liberal arts to beef up their writing and reading skills. I wouldn’t even mind if they minored in liberal arts such as philosophy or literature.Let’s face it, I do want them to write clear, error-free cover letters. Thus, I don’t think that I am that accounting biased at all. </p>

<p>I do admit that these suggested majors were for my kids based on their respective abilities; however, if they showed an interest and ability in a liberal art such as script writing or music, I would be just as fanatically supportive, although privately I would be worried about their ability to earn a living.</p>

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<p>I don’t doubt your sincerity in positing and helping others consider many career choices, but subconsciously we all talk most about what we’re familiar with. For example, in this thread both your posts predominantly talk about accounting, and Goalsoriented had previously stated he was a Business IS major, so not entirely relevant for his specific situation. I’m not ragging on you for it, just pointing out a truism - you’re far from the only one that does it on CC and it’s not necessarily a bad thing.</p>

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<p>My comment about technology jobs was meant to be understood as “Technology firms hire people with technological knowledge, not business knowledge”. Whether or not getting a degree in Computer Science will actually get you a technology job is an open question at most schools, however, my point was that the original article’s assertion that that we should be surprised that business majors don’t get technology firm jobs is stupid. What’s next, “Newsflash: Julliard produces few astronauts”</p>

<p>The thing about STEM jobs from the above is also right on. Get a degree from a top school and you’ll do fine. If you don’t, you are probably out of luck. Firms that need a lot of ho-hum engineers and programmers want to hire guys from India who are desperate to come here and will work for cheap. Unless you are much better than them(MIT, CalTech, etc) you serve no purpose. </p>

<p>My job involves a lot of writing as well as financial knowledge and client interfacing. We tried to outsource some of our more menial tasks to India and it just didn’t work. </p>

<p>Thank God.</p>

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<p>What constitutes as a business major? Business Administration? Business Economics?</p>

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<p>chaospaladin asks,“What constitutes as a business major? Business Administration? Business Economics”</p>

<p>Response: You hit the problem that I have with this thread. The thread seems to lump all categories of business majors from all schools into the same pot. This clearly isn’t true. I do, agree, that unless you attend a very well known school such as Wharton or CMU, majoring in business administration, management and marketing isn’t a good idea. Other types of majors, however, such as accounting, statistics, actuarial studies,mathematical finance and maybe even finance itself might not be bad choices IF properly supplemented with a strong liberal arts foundation.</p>

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<p>The real question should be not “who’s going to get more and better job offers out of college,” but rather, “who’s going to be better prepared to have a successful life, considering both economic and non-economic factors?”</p>

<p>If you believe that critical thinking skills are a key factor in determining the answer to that question, then it should be relevant that the data is clear that business majors are at the bottom when it comes to developing those skills.</p>

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<p>Spare us. First, you are massively overestimating the amount of critical thinking skills that actually get taught to ANYBODY of any major in college. If you don’t have those skills by the time you are 18 you aren’t going to get them. </p>

<p>Second, business majors ought to have an advantage in terms of making important financial decisions in life in terms of handling debt, investing for retirement, etc.</p>

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<p>I agree with a lot of the advice given so far, but I think we are giving more importance to specific majors than there should be. The characteristics and personality of each individual is far more important to future success than whatever they majored in during college. Those with high motivation, IQ, and EQ, will be far more likely to invest in themselves and make the most of their education. They will be the ones who major in business but also round out their education with liberal arts classes, or conversely, major in the liberal arts but still build their technical skill base. I consider myself to be a very successful actuary and I majored in Actuarial Science. However, at my first company (F500 insurer), there was a SVP actuary who majored in music, but rounded out his education with enough math to be able to get through the exams. Our majors were vastly different, but we both had motivation, focus, intelligence, and an interest in lifelong learning. These qualities have far more to do with our success than our college majors did.</p>

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<p>It’s true that many students in all majors fail to develop critical thinking skills. The same body of research that contradicts your second assertion clearly shows that business majors fail to develop critical thinking skills at a higher rate than do those in any other area.</p>

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<p>Nope - Annasdad is right on target here. The typical person doesn’t reach the level of cognitive development necessary to be to be able to reason from multiple viewpoints rather than dualistically until around age 20 (obviously, there’s a normal curve here - some reach it younger, but many never do). That’s why critical reasoning consistently gets promoted as the top priority of an undergraduate education.</p>

<p>And he’s also right on target with “who’s going to be better prepared to have a successful life, considering both economic and non-economic factors?” In the 21st century, you don’t want to merely prepare for today’s job skills in today’s entry-level jobs. In 10-20 years, many of those jobs won’t exist in their current format, and by then many jobs will exist that don’t exist today.</p>

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<p>After graduating with my business degree and seeing what the job market is like first-hand, I am extremely hesitant to recommend any business major with the exception of Accounting, unless you go to one of the top 20 undergraduate business schools in the nation. However, I too have to agree with jonahrubin that critical thinking skills are something that, in the vast majority of cases, will fundamentally develop during the years before college, not during (though it is important to continue developing them). And furthermore, it will likely occur due to influences outside of school, as opposed to the result of high school and earlier schooling. As the education system currently exists, at every level, there is nothing about it that strongly encourages the development of critical and logical thinking.</p>

<p>More quantitative liberal arts and science majors (such as mathematics and physics) and writing-intensive majors (such as philosophy and political science) will develop those associated skills better. However, unless the coursework is drastically, and i MEAN drastically, different at my school than others, I can tell you that liberal arts and science curriculums do not encourage any further critical thinking than business curriculums.</p>

<p>The reason all those studies conclude what they do (lack of critical thinking among business students) is because business has an at-large reputation of being lighter in writing, math, and compared to engineering/science, lighter in overall work, than many other majors that actually lead to a job. So it naturally attracts a large amount of students who already have poor critical thinking skills and no desire to develop them. There is a large proportion of students that already possess those skills before college and are attracted to other majors. However, some of them (like myself and many of the others on this forum) were attracted to a business major due to our specific career interests.</p>

<p>Edit:
I would also like to point out that the education system, both pre-college and college, can and should focus almost entirely on those fundamental skills. However, in my experience, no major truly does so (and from reading about the similarity of coursework in other colleges, neither do I believe any college does so), due to a large variety of reasons that are the result of societal influence and government, administrative, and faculty decisions. Their actions do not match their words.</p>

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<p>So if we are defining a business major as the “nuts and bolts” of business and liberal arts as “reading and writing which builds critical thinking skills” but does not offer a practical skill set than isnt there a combination of both called Economics?</p>

<p>Economics combines business basics (most degrees require some of the basic Business Administration classes) with the theoretical side, which from reading this thread is synomous with critical thinking.</p>

<p>Then if we take this a step farther wouldnt an Economics and Accounting double major be the prefect major for people wanting to enter business? A real world application skillset in Accounting, which teaches you how to read a financial statement at bare miniumum which is key in any business related job, and in theory critical thinking skills as well as business skills from Economics.</p>

<p>Also Economics is a liberal arts class at many schools how is it not the exception if were accepting the premise that Undergraduate Business School does not foster critical thinking skills.</p>

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<p>I have never heard of a BA/BS Economics degree that requires several business courses. And unless they are Accounting / Finance / Business Statistics, or something similarly technical and quantitative, then that school has a poor economics program. One of the big reasons why employers are more reluctant to hire business majors than other, more technical majors at the same non-top school is due to the business core having so much fluff in the core curriculum. Examples are business law, management, entrepreneurship, human resources, marketing, and ethics courses (the core varies somewhat between schools I am sure).</p>

<p>Double majoring with Accounting is not feasible for most students. Any decent economics degree out there is not going to have a core that overlaps with the business core. Therefore, students will have to take significantly more courses overall. This will result in overloads that threaten burn-out, interference with other activities employers like to see, to potentially use summers that are important for internships, and negative grade effects.</p>

<p>Furthermore, what if one does not wish to be an Accountant, but instead wishes to work in one of the MANY other areas of business? Although an Accounting minor would probably universally help employment prospects, completing the entire Accounting curriculum is not going to help with those other jobs any more than the minor.</p>

<p>However, economics majors from lower-ranked schools are still going to be at a disadvantage to business majors (and economics majors) from top schools. But I guess if you are not going to one of those top schools, maybe an economics major is a better bet than business. Just use all of your electives on heavily quantitative, but slightly less theoretical coursework (statistics, applied mathematics, accounting, finance), and emphasize that in your cover letters and resumes.</p>

<p>I still contend that unfortunately, as higher education (not to mention lower levels) currently functions, no college degree truly encourages critical thinking, including economics. People generally have to develop that on their own, though some schools / majors may give SLIGHTLY more opportunity to do so within the classroom.</p>

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<p>Your negativity is overwhelming. Plenty of business majors from lesser known schools go on to great things. I’m still under the heavy suspicion that there’s a fatal flaw in the way you’re presenting yourself in your job search. And you still haven’t answered my question - have you gone to resume workshops? Most people seem to think that whatever “resume” they whip out of their underwear is next to godliness.</p>

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<p>The old “Bill Gates didn’t graduate college X number of years ago, so any college graduate with any credentials has the opportunity to become a billionaire” style optimism? As I mentioned in other threads, some people who work hard also get lucky. And times are changing - things that had a certain probability of leading to success in the past increasingly have lower probabilities of leading to success. The competition is growing more fierce every day, regardless of the economic recession.</p>

<p>Someone who is negative / pessimistic is someone who encourages people to give up or not try in the face of any challenges or obstacles. I certainly have not advocated that in these forums. I advocate the opposite, that due to the reality of the situation (not what should be the situation or what we hope the situation would be), people need to do everything they can to become a competitive candidate in this job market, and that includes going to a top school if you can make it in one. However, neither am I saying to major in something you dislike or go to a school you dislike - regardless of the major or rank of the school, that will likely lead to negative results.</p>

<p>As for your specific question, yes I have:

  1. Been to multiple school events that included resume tips and advice.
  2. Had my resume reviewed by my school’s career center more than once.
  3. Had my resume reviewed / graded in my business communications class.
  4. Had one of my non-business advisors review my resume.
  5. Spent countless hours extensively researching resume techniques online.
  6. Revised / tested multiple resume strategies across multiple applications and job sites.</p>
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<p>So if your not cut out to be an engineer or other hard science major (as a majority people are not) than are you saying that philosophy,english, etc is a better major than Business Administration, Finance, Economics, Accounting?</p>

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<p>I’m not advocating Bill Gates/Steve Jobs/Michael Dell-type optimism. The vast majority of college dropouts do not attain anywhere near their success. My point was just that you’re discounting the value of a non-accounting business degrees when in reality, any non-technical degree basically has the same value when job hunting. Not very much. You can quibble over the minutiae, but that’s the truth of it, top 20 b-school or not.</p>

<p>Getting a job is all about presenting yourself appropriately and networking. You can get away with less of the latter if you’re at a prestigious school, but for everyone else it’s a necessity. If your resume is as good as you say, how much effort did you put into networking with recruiters and such?</p>

<p>My friends from HS that went to humbler schools have been more successful in finding good jobs than the ones that ended up at the top LACs and ivies. Just food for thought.</p>

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<p>“Business degree” is a term about as meaningful as “science degree”.</p>

<p>Who goes around saying “Yeah, I have a degree in science.”</p>

<p>There’s a big $$$ difference between science (computer science) and science (environmental science).</p>

<p>There’s a big $$$ difference between business (information systems) and business (hospitality).</p>

<p>I only see people tentatively considering the entire business department as a freshman call themselves “business majors”. Everyone else calls themselves finance, MIS, CIS, accounting, marketing, etc.</p>

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<p>Worthy of being painted on the front door of every university in America.</p>

<p>If anyone tells me they “learned how to think critically in college”, I’m instinctively questioning their overall cognitive prowess.</p>