<p>I am wanting to get a degree in Business Administration, but I would like to double major for a better chance at future careers, if in case things do not go as planned. The goal is to have a bar up and running after school, what would be a good second major?</p>
<p>English, as writing and communication skills are something companies say is often lacking.</p>
<p>Math - it would show you are very analytical and you’ll be in high demand. Yes, English and writing are important but they won’t help in your placement.</p>
<p>What are you interested in? That should guide your second major.</p>
<p>but I would like to double major for a better chance at future careers</p>
<p>A second major is not going to guarantee or give you a better chance for future careers; it’s the skills you acquire that will do that. For example, you might major in business but learn to code/program and if you don’t do the business thing, you might go into software development. You could potentially double-major in computer science to do that; but you could also just take a bunch of comp sci classes and do an internship or join a coding club and do it on the side. Or maybe you major in Spanish, intern for the State Department and end up working as a consular official or something. The point is, you can get a job with any major - some majors are more related to in-demand fields (like math, technical, physical science and engineering majors) but what you really need to focus on is skill-building and gaining experience.</p>
<p>FWIW I strongly disagree that English and writing won’t help in your placement. There are MANY jobs for which writing strongly is an important component of your work; I had an internship in which I was recognized explicitly for my writing skill (it consistently impressed my supervisor, which was a big part of making him want to hire me permanently). Besides, as @BrownParent says, a lot of employers have talked a lot about how new hires are terrible writers and communicators. Even an engineer, mathematician or economist needs to write in order to convey his or her findings. In fact, writing may be even MORE important in these fields, as you have to explain very complex ideas and processes to people who know nothing about them. (And actually, economists and mathematicians write a lot.)</p>
I would suggest a foreign language. When I say foreign language I mean it literally (read as: don’t study Spanish). And it should be a language still alive today (read as: don’t study Latin). Also, find a language where there aren’t hundreds of millions speakers (read as: don’t study Mandarin).
Your best bet is to double major in business administration and a language with a mostly English alphabet. This is so the new foreign language you’d be learning won’t be impossible to moderately master in 4-5 years. And let’s face it, in places like China and India where there are 200+ million speakers of the local language, you’ll NEVER get a better grasp on the language than them. You could study Cantonese or Arabic for 25 years and not even come close to the understanding a person born and raised in those countries has of the language.
If I were you I would choose from the following list of foreign languages in which to double major with business in:
French
German
Italian
Swedish
A Slavic language (such as Bosnian)
and maybe Greek
stay away from:
Spanish
Mandarin
Vietnamese
Swahili
Korean
Taiwanese
Japanese
Arabic
Hindi
you get the idea
Business administration by itself is fairly challenging. So choose a language that won’t make the courseloads too heavy to deal with.