<p>Hello Everyone,
I am currently a high school senior getting ready to apply to college. I've looked at Colgate and it looks like a great school. However, I am looking to pursue a career in Business, which is not an available major at Colgate. What are the options for someone who wants to go into a career in Business at Colgate?</p>
<p>There is always economics as an option.</p>
<p>Business?</p>
<p>I suggest that you develop your interests and intellect in the company of scholars- in the classical tradition of the liberal arts. Colgate’s core curriculum and academic advisors, alongside its wealth of extracurricular activities affords you those opportunities. Afterwards you can go to work and/or pursue an MBA or other advanced degree. You will have established yourself once you apply yourself.</p>
<p>For now, I suggest that you review what the colgate.edu site displays for majors, study groups, activities and other opportunities to engage within this special community. And when you visit campus and perhaps meet with alumni in your locale you will have plenty of opportunity to ask how students and alumni have found their way.</p>
<p>Best of luck with your search.</p>
<p>A lot of Colgate students do go into “business world” as you speak of because employers valued Colgate’s emphasis on liberal arts tradition that encourages critical analysis, thinking, and writing. Regardless of their majors.</p>
<p>It’s funny you should ask because for decades Colgate was famous for the enormous numbers of its graduates who went into business and ended up at or near the CEO level. My Dad went to Colgate, majored in Psychology, and ended up doing exactly that, becoming President of a major New York City corporation. It’s common for students to think that specializing is a good idea. If you want to excel in the business world, they assume, you should take a lot of business courses. Not generally the best idea, though. </p>
<p>Why not? As TickleMePink has noted, what the business world really wants is generally not the specialist who has taken a lot of narrow business courses but a generalist who can think and who knows about the world. Today, more and more students specialize much too early when they should really be getting a broad education. I mean history, literature, foreign language, science, economics, and some off-campus time, too (Colgate is famous for its enormous number of great off-campus study programs). Having gained a rich liberal arts education, you are far more educated and confident than any graduate with a narrower business orientation. </p>
<p>You have no idea how many alums of Ivy League and similar schools I’ve known in business, law, and medicine who regretted that they specialized too early and did not get a good education. I know that sounds hard to believe, but when you don’t feel you have “time” to take a broad variety of courses because you are so stressed out worrying about grad school and a career, you shortchange yourself and spend the rest of your life not knowing much about art, music, literature, history, etc. but knowing a whole lot about a specialized area. What kind of conversation can you have with a person like that? What kinds of decisions can a narrowly educated person like that make?</p>
<p>Look at the types of educations serious business successes had, and you will discover that many did not focus on business at all until maybe graduate school–if they even went to graduate school. Most of the best business people I’ve known were liberal arts graduates who later went for their MBA’s . . . or didn’t and just got involved in the stock market, banking, or business right out of college. And because they had a broad and first-rate education, they could talk to anyone about almost anything and they had confidence and an outlook that was far more impressive than they typical business “bean counter.” </p>
<p>Go to a liberal arts college and get a great education. Take some economics and business-related courses, if you wish, along with many others. But don’t neglect history, literature, science, art, etc. This is your brain we’re talking about. Smart, educated, and confident beats narrowly educated every time.</p>