Business Majors...

<p>Why is there so little respect here for business majors? uhh, I feel like people here who are majoring pre-med or engineering feel that they're so much better than any other major, I've seen more than one instance of this, especially on the old boards.
I've graduated from high school with a 3.96 GPA and after choosing Accounting as my major, friends and teachers were shocked. I'm still confused as to how brainwashed some people are to think that Business majors are for dumb people.</p>

<p>So far I've learned to finance my money and some basis for successfully running a business (I didn't have prior experience besides reading books related to this - nor any field experience), it's my 3rd year as an undergrad, and I'm making $80,000 a year from real estate, running websites, and a part-time job; something 98% of non-business major students don't know. (I got the statistics from <a href="http://www.makeitupasyougo.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.makeitupasyougo.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

<p>The way things are going, I may retire by the time I'm 30 (which is my goal, by the way) and I'll be making around $200,000 a year.</p>

<p>Less than 5% of americans actually make $100,000 or more.</p>

<p>Briefly:
1- The entire goal of going to college is to graduate and get MONEY, perferably a high-paying job.</p>

<p>2- Business majors teach you about MONEY, you can earn a degree and work, but you'll also know how to invest this money and how to finance it.</p>

<p>Discuss.</p>

<p>i am also a business major. I think there is a serious lack of respect for how much work we really <em>do</em>. i don't post on here very often, but i've seen comments about it as well. </p>

<p>this is my senior year of college.. i'm buying myself a brand new car for my 22nd birthday :) right now i'm a supervisor at one place, and i have a job for another company as well. i also do things such as web design and development. </p>

<p>my roommates are majors in the following : graphic design, mass communications, Biology (premed), and math.. and although we were friends before, they used to comment on how much work they do and how business majors dont understand. now that they've lived with me they acknowledge how much work we have to do.. and the one picked up a marketing minor and said she didnt realize how different it was from everything else. I think its just one of them things you have to do to understand.</p>

<p>im a business major at USC. let me say this, it isnt easy. we have a B- curve. the students in our major are super competetive. the kids accepted into the program are bright to begin with. BUT we are well respected in socal. i guess it depends what school you got to and where youre from.</p>

<p>i actually transfered. i was at uci. i paid everything with my own cash, no parental support. i worked as a telemartketer to put over 15k towards my education in two yrs. i plan on getting my real estate liscence. hopefully it will help me cope with my scary tuition bills now.</p>

<p>i think biz majors are more motivated in the working world than in the classroom. its what gives us our edge.</p>

<p>I have a question for signupsux and any college student that has invested in real estate. I'm just wondering if you can give me some advice and tips that you have gained through doing this. I'm interested in investing in real estate as a college student also so any response would be appreciated.</p>

<p>just curious, how did you manage to raise the capital to rent out real estate while youre still in college? how much did the property cost? i can hardly afford my textbooks. and yes, it is possible to make that kind of money by the time youre 30. i listened to some anayst from merril lynch speak a couple weeks ago and he started out making 24k a year during his training period. after that, he worked for himself essentially and went onto commission. hes 29 now and making 300k a year (of course that varies depending on how well he does, but still). and yes, it is extremely competitive. he said hes the only one left out of the seven people who were hired with him and he spent probably two years working 12 hour days doing nothing but cold calling trying to open up accounts so hed have a clientele, b/c you have to build it all up yourself. its impressive, im not so sure i could do that tho. it does prove that hard work will pay off in the end. i liked how he said that hed rather work his ass off those two years and live well the rest of his life. as opposed to working his ass off when he was 60 trying to retire. </p>

<p>classes for business are by no means easy either. we have this optional one credit hour course in the marketing dept. thats modeled off of the apprentice (donald actually praised us on the radio <a href="http://www.niu.edu/pubaffairs/audio/trump.mp3%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.niu.edu/pubaffairs/audio/trump.mp3&lt;/a&gt;) and the amount of work these kids do is amazing (i know some of them). they wound raising thousands of dollars in different challenges and whatnot. a class like that gives you more real world experience than any other i know. wish i could get into it haha. the comms dept than actually filmed it like it was an actual series and you can download episodes <a href="http://www.cob.niu.edu/apprentice/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cob.niu.edu/apprentice/&lt;/a>. the files are big, i watched them and deleted them, but very cool. you cannot be dumb and succeed in business. i dont know who came up with that stereotype, but everyone i know is highly motivated and we know how to have fun too. our acct department requires a min 3.3 gpa even to be admitted to the school in your junior year.</p>

<p>signupsux, business majors are considered too vocational, whereas majors such as physics, classics, philosophy, biology, etc. are theoretical and more intellectual. Just take a look at the reading lists and topics that these majors cover and you'll see why they demand so much more respect.</p>

<p>You may have made that much money, but know that wealth does not translate into intellectualism. The entire goal of college is NOT career preparation. That's one the most dangerous perspective a college undergrad can possibly have. Some people just don't want high-paying jobs; they prefer to commit themselves to a life in the libraries. I'm sure a lot of the your professors can get an ibanking job if they want to... but some people just don't want to.</p>

<p>But please don't get me wrong. I think business majors are incredibly essential. I simply do not think it's as rigorous as the traditional majors. In the end, if you like money and business, then why not a business major? Just don't assume that money is everyone's end goal.</p>

<p>It is because most of the idiots in colleges who get in choose psychology or business as a major. Its not that all business and psychology majors are dumb people, but its just the stereotype of a lot of the people that choose it as a major.. people like to see the bad of everything and make assumptions based off of it. Think of it like this, if you think of a physics major, you don't think of someone being really cool or good with the ladies.</p>

<p>It depends on what kind of business. Stuff like marketing is a joke. Ibanking is tough, and requires understanding of complex stuff like price theory. I'd say management and consulting is average. There are some very smart people in business, and some very dumb people as well (like all majors).</p>

<p>My beef with business majors are that they are often superificial people who only care about money, sports, cars, partying, etc. Also I hate getting into arguments with them, because they rely too much on empirical knowledge versus epistemologically sound arguments, are way too normative, and rely a lot on appearance versus substance. Not all business majors of course, but a lot that I have spoken too.</p>

<p>lollybo, you obviously don't know anything about investment banking if you think the work bankers do is "tough." Anyone with half a brain can put together a powerpoint presentation and plug numbers into models on excel. Don't kid yourself.</p>

<p>then why do they get paid $500k to plug numbers into excel?</p>

<p>
[quote]
lollybo, you obviously don't know anything about investment banking if you think the work bankers do is "tough." Anyone with half a brain can put together a powerpoint presentation and plug numbers into models on excel. Don't kid yourself.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You're an ignorant fool!!</p>

<p>Because they are overpaid and its beginning to come apparent with these corporations going broke.</p>

<p>Although I don't think i-banking is a really easy job.. i mean you have to work 70+ hour work weeks and you really have to keep up with the stocks 24/7. You literally live your job... def not for me, but the money sure would be nice.</p>

<p>metfan2121, analysts don't get paid $500,000. The guys that make the big bucks are the ones that make it rain on a consistent basis (i.e. Moelis, formerly of UBS, he started his own boutique in summer 2007 and already got action with the Yahoo-Microsoft deal. Same with Quattrone and Qatalyst and Perella with PWP).</p>

<p>Bottom line, if you're in the business you make money because the business makes money.</p>

<p>I think some people view business majors as pursuing a major just for money, as opposed to non-vocational majors pursuing something because they're passionate about it.</p>

<p>I don't agree with that viewpoint but I can understand how one would get that impression.</p>

<p>signupsux,
how do you do it?</p>

<p>People don't usually drop freshman business classes and switch to chemistry. It usually happens the other way around. You chose to be a business major. Not everyone does. Not saying you couldn't have done just fine in the sciences, but most science majors wouldn't have much problem with business or econ.</p>

<p>This might upset people a little bit, but I would say the easiest major at a college is usually the one with the most people from the football team. Same thing goes for general curriculum classes.</p>

<p>As a potential business major, I've always received good reactions when telling people I'm going into business. At the moment, I'm planning on going into one of the "softer" sides of business, Marketing, but I still think it calls for respect.</p>

<p>Sure, I'm not going to be a doctor, but people still look at business majors as successful people, at least in my experience.</p>

<p>are stupid, on average.</p>

<p>Deal with it.
I've taken the most difficult b-school weeder classes at McGill, including an MBA course. They're a joke compared to an easy math class.
And I'm sorry, most undergrad business majors do not make the big bucks. They make 50k/year doing cubicle wage-slave jobs.</p>

<p>Goldman Sachs will hire a philosophy major at Dartmouth over a business major any day.</p>

<p>"Business Admin." is the most popular major now. Guess what isn't?
Electrical Engineering. Go figure.</p>

<p>Studying business is like studying how to be cool instead of learning to do things that actually make you cool....get the analogy?</p>

<p>There's no doubt Engineering and Physical Science majors are harder than a business major.. thats why you don't see the football and basketball team as a major like that. I do know that some people in the science fields can kind of be jerks towards the non-science majors which I think is kind of lame, but that is generally the conceited losers with no friends, so can you really blame them? They have to feel good about themselves somehow. It depends soley on the person if they are going to be sucessfull as a business major or just make it a useless degree, but you have to realize you aren't going to get "ooo's and ahh's" with people thinking you are smart for being a business major.</p>

<p>The only people that put down business majors are science majors - and only the stupid ones at that. While engineers and other hard science majors (i.e. chemistry, physics) have hardest work (no denying that), business majors have a LOT of work. My friends at Haas are always working on one project or another, reading over case studies, job hunting, etc...it's by no means an easy major.</p>

<p>That being said, the difficulty of the business major varies widely depending on the focus. My friends in marketing do hardly any work while those who are gunning for IBanking and consulting are working their arses off.</p>