<p>Toneranger, trust me, weed out occurs even in intermediate accounting courses too.</p>
<p>taxguy - yes- I'm sure it does. At my particular school, the freshman courses were famous for being the biggest weed outs. Thousands of kids for a limited number of spots in the b school. Once you got in, the courses were still tough (per my friends reports) but they didn't try to dismiss half or more of the class.</p>
<p>My big beef with a business major is that it seems like its a glorified vocational degree. I go to wharton, it's not a fake easy school, but at the end of the day, its full of people who want to get in and get out and make a lot of money. What ever happened to going to college to learn for the sake of learning? </p>
<p>Maybe people have utility preferences such that they prefer to have a job that they hate in order to get a high, safe income, but I certainly am not like that. Money != automatic happiness. Do you really want to be doing something every day of your life that you hate? I'm not saying that nobody actually LIKES accounting, it's just not my cup of tea. </p>
<p>I'm doing a dual degree with math and wharton. I absolutely LOVE the theoretical proof based math. It's totally useless in real life. Who cares? The classes I'm taking in Wharton tend to be ones that focus on theory rather than applications, because I refuse to let my time in college be a 4 year vocational training. I feel, at the end of the day, that I'll have a lot more choices on what to do. If I find that I love investment banking or want to be a hedge fund quant, my wharton pedigree + math major will give me an edge. If I want to do research in evolutionary game theory, the door to lots of Ph.D programs will be open. If I want to do the cool stereotypical math major thing and work for the CIA or NSA, I can do that too.</p>
<p>So anyway, if you love accounting, do accounting. It's not really the most academic major ever, but its certainly respectible. Just don't let some love of money dictate what you do with your life.</p>
<p>/rant off. sorry</p>
<p>tportem notes,"My big beef with a business major is that it seems like its a glorified vocational degree. I go to wharton, it's not a fake easy school, but at the end of the day, its full of people who want to get in and get out and make a lot of money. What ever happened to going to college to learn for the sake of learning?"</p>
<p>Response: First, when you make a broad generalization, you can get yourself into trouble. Who says that all business majors don't want to learn? I find accouting and finance just as interesting as you do math. Why is having a direct impact on real world skills so bad? </p>
<p>If you research the history of universities, they started with practical training from real world experts. Frankly, I am a bit saddened that colleges and universities have gotten totally away from that. Personally, I would like to see at least some practicality in majors. This was also a lament by several University of Pennsylvania professors that I know. They would LOVE to add more practicality to some programs but are discouraged from do so due to the "ivy league mentality." </p>
<p>For example, I am a national speaker and writer. I have yet to see any kid with a communication major be able to speak well on a platform or conduct real world communications in any way. It is very sad.</p>
<p>Tportem also notes,"Just don't let some love of money dictate what you do with your life"</p>
<p>Response: Agreed. However, who says the pursuit of making gobs of money is a bad thing? Trust me: when you have a family, financial emergencies such as major medical expenses, college expenses for kids, you will wish many times that your life's direction was more financially oriented.
Who is to say that business or vocationally oriented kids are wrong and you are right? For a bright guy, you are very closeminded. Different strokes for different folks even for those who want to study theoretical math.</p>
<p>Tportem, One other points that I want you to consider. Not everyone has the ability to have a U Penn Cache. Not everyone has the ability to study theoretical math. The average student at a school like Temple, which is a good school and is not being denigrated by me in any way, isn't the same caliber as the average student at UPenn academically. Studying real world skills will enhance their resume and make them more desirable by employers. It is a survival skill!</p>
<p>The bottom line is this: whether kids study some theoretical subject or a "vocationally"oriented subject or a subject that lends itself to a practical job skill such as engineering or accounting, the end result will, in most cases, be the same in one respect: having a viable future career path.</p>
<p>First of all, accounting is hard. No question about it and those who haven't ever taken intermediate accounting classes and above would be foolish to claim otherwise. </p>
<p>tportem,
your views are rather elitist regarding "vocational" education. You need to understand that some people require a more vocational slant in the education they pursue. Some people, for instance, simply can't afford to do otherwise and need to be more pragmatic about their educational goals. Don't be so narrow-minded.</p>
<p>I thought we established that a business major is neither weak nor stupid. Can we let this die?</p>
<p>Well. I guess this post was brought up because of the changing trend. There seems to be a lot of people entering high salary industries without the traditional business degrees from Ivies like back in the 80s. Is business easy? I think so. Is engineering hard? I think so. Why? The unit load is much different. Condensing an engineering degree into 4 years without AP credit is a tough 15-18 unit per semester courseload. Whereas, business is generally a 4 year degree for most people and 3 years for most with good AP credit in math/english/science/foreign langauge etc.</p>
<p>If I could complete an engineering degree in 4 years at 12-15 units per semester, i'd call engineering a cakewalk. But I don't have the AP credit to do such a thing. So I would personally rate engineering as difficult.</p>
<p>Can I say that one is definitely more difficult than the other? No, it varies upon person. You can't expect a spatial genius to major in accounting and get a 4.0. Just so much as you can't expect a deductive genius to take art history and get a 4.0.</p>
<p>It is my firm belief that GPA is merely an indicator of how much interest a person truly has for a subject. If you love what you study, you'll do what it takes to earn a high GPA. If you don't love it, you'll earn a lower GPA. </p>
<p>I'm sure most of you have sat in a class where people are like, "Oh I'm majoring in Genetics, 80k a year when I get out." or "Oh I'm going to Haas, 100k a year in IBanking when I get out."</p>
<p>To be quite honest, most 90%+ won't make it through the following year provided they are doing it for the money. I sometimes don't run into people after a single semester and I'm at a small 9000 student college. It obviously shows that the misconception of money can determine how well a person will do in school.</p>
<p>If by "spatial" you mean artistic and creative, I have to agree with you, at least from a personal standpoint. I am both and have always found it an absolute struggle to get A's in accounting.</p>
<p>whatever....all u stupid liberal arts majors can ***** and moan all u want about how stupid and greedy us business majors are, and how our major is not academic, but I will get the last laugh when u are serving me fries in ten years....but its ok...at least u got to learn "performance arts" or "math"...haha</p>
<p>"I'm hoping business is going to be easy, bc I'd rather have more time to do other things....parties, going to football games, intramurals, hanging out at the beach, and hanging out with friends.</p>
<p>I don't want my whole college experience to be soley about studying and classes.</p>
<p>Anyways, atleast with business a person is able to become successful and find a good job.</p>
<p>A math major is just going to end up becoming a teacher."</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Reason I don't want to be a business major.</p>
<p>This thread is pointless - let's not forget that every organisation runs on business models. That would include the charitable hospital and the pharmaceutical industry that our science major pals are working for.</p>
<p>The business major only seems to be easy because the right kind of people apply for it - the ones who already have an aptitude for it and know about balancing their life well. Also, I find it common that business students are usually the ones who stand out - the fun ones. Must be the leadership qualities and creativity. I think being a business student really adds some flavour to your character.</p>
<p>My sister goes to Cornell for ChemE. Yeah, it's REALLY hard. She always has a lot of really tough work.</p>
<p>But business majors take a certain kind of person - you have to be a natural born leader, and you have to be really creative and really quick on your feet. You can be an engineering major and have no leadership skills. I don't necessarily think business is equivalent in difficulty, I just think the majors aren't comparable because they demand different skills. But business is hardly a fluff major.</p>
<p>Accounting is easier than engineering b/c the possibility of accounting majors switching to engineering is greater than the possibility of accounting majors switching to engineering when flunking out. (Students who flunk accounting switch to an easier business majors and not to any engineering majors).</p>
<p>lol, why are business majors always the target of the science majors' insecurities? yea, business isn't as hard as science/engineering, but its harder than everything else. why not rip on communications? history? sociology? political science? probably because you don't feel as threatened by their career prospects and pay right out of college, am I wrong?</p>
<p>I think it's because science majors do have respect for the things sociology/history/political science/etc. majors learn. As for communications, I do believe science majors look down on them too.</p>
<p>the stuff anyone learns in those aforementioned majors is far easier than finance, accounting, ops, etc classes. so the real problem must not be with how easy business is relative to the sciences, but rather with the business material itself. what, not imaginative enough for you science nerds?</p>
<p>Let's just all agree that underwater basket weaving is the easiest major and be done with this little tiff :-).</p>
<p>Have you ever tried to weave a basket underwater? You have no clue how hard that is. To be fair though, I never tried weaving a basket underwater, but did try in a thunderstorm (it's an interesting story), and it was very difficult.</p>
<p>From Wikipedia: "Underwater basket-weaving is also an idiomatic example of a "really easy" college or university major or class at any level. The term also serves as a humorously generic answer to questions about a college degree. Example: "What kind of degree do I need to get this job?" "You can have a degree in underwater left-handed basket weaving as long as you have your piece of paper.""</p>
<p>I was being facetious :-P.</p>