Business vs Econ Majors

Applying to College
1

<p>I'm currently teaching in China for kids that want to go to the states for college. Alot of them seem to be interested in Business or Economics so I decided to prepare a presentation for them on the differences between the two. </p>

<p>I plan on explaining:
Differences between Business and Econ majors</p>

<p>Differences between the different Business majors (finance, accounting, marketing, management)</p>

<p>Characteristics and personalities of Business and Econ majors</p>

<p>Types of internships to partake in to help with finding a job coming out of college with a Econ and/or Business degree</p>

<p>Activities during high school to help with students that want to apply to selective colleges for a Business or Econ degree</p>

<p>I read some past threads about Business vs Econ on this site but they were from 2008-2009 so I'm wondering if there were some changes as far as outlook for Business and Econ majors after graduation. If you guys could help with any of my topics such as insight or links to websites, i would greatly appreciate it. Also if there is anything that any of you feel I should add to my presentation please let me know as well. Thanks alot for the help!</p>

2

<p>A big change since 2009 is that people are recognizing that undergraduate business majors are a dime a dozen:</p>

<p>“More than 20% of U.S. undergraduates are business majors, nearly double the next most common major, social sciences and history… now faculty members, school administrators and corporate recruiters are questioning the value of a business degree at the undergraduate level”
[Wealth</a> or Waste? Rethinking - WSJ.com](<a href=“Wealth or Waste? Rethinking - WSJ”>Wealth or Waste? Rethinking - WSJ)
If your students are interested in pursuing an MBA, then they might be better off majoring in some other undergraduate discipline.</p>

<p>Economics is still regarded as a serious discipline to the extent that they award Nobel prizes for economics.<br>
<a href=“http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/[/url]”>http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/&lt;/a&gt;
Then again, the Nobel Prize isn’t what it used to be-- they’ll award the Peace Prize for just having a pulse.</p>

3

<p>Economics is the study of resource allocation and the economy’s actors (people, businesses, government, etc.) behave in it and influence it. It makes use of other liberal arts subjects like math and statistics and overlaps with other liberal arts subjects like psychology and history.</p>

<p>Business is the study of applying various liberal arts subjects like economics, psychology, sociology, and statistics to operating a business.</p>

<p>Of course, many students study economics as a substitute for studying business when the latter is not offered.</p>

4

<p>Thank you both for your input. I was wondering what are some pros and cons of each major?</p>

5

<p>First let me say that econ and business are non-technical majors, in the sense that they do not train or qualify you to perform any specific job. So most comparisons are not really relevant at all; the only thing that might be is average salary, and econ pays more.</p>