<p>So I'm currently finishing up my third semester in community college and plan to transfer to UT in Fall 2012, and I'm wondering how easy/difficult it is to double major as a transfer student. I've recently become interested in double majoring in economics snd finance (whereas previously I'd only intended to study economics), and I will have finished the business indicator courses by the time I graduate with my associate's degree in May. However, I'm slightly confused as to whether it takes a lot longer to graduate with both a liberal arts and business degree rather than just one of the two. Thanks in advance for your time and help; I hope I didn't ask too many questions.</p>
<p>You would have to get accepted into McCombs first, which is really very competitive. If you get accepted into McCombs, then you can double major in finance and economics. You can’t major in finance if you’re not in the business school.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s what I figured—it looks like you pretty much need a 4.0 or close to it to get into McCombs. Some friends of mine have transferred to UT (CNS and Cockrell) after finishing their associate degrees, and they’ve told me that b/c they completed the core curriculum at another institution they were able to immediately begin taking courses in their majors. Ideally, that’s what I’d like to do: Start taking finance/economics courses right off the bat and hopefully graduate within 2-2.5 years after transferring. But do you happen to know if it would take significantly longer for someone to graduate who’s double majoring in both McCombs & COLA?</p>
<p>If you’ve finished the core at another institution, then you’d begin taking finance/economics courses right when you get to UT. </p>
<p>Can you finish a double major in finance and economics in just 2 years after transferring? I don’t know. I think it would be pretty tight. I transferred into McCombs and I’m doing finance with a minor in international business, and I still have room for a couple more classes. So yea, it might be possible.</p>
<p>I was going to minor in economics, but I’ve heard econ at UT can be really hard and I didn’t want to hurt my GPA.</p>
<p>The main complaint I’ve heard from econ majors at UT—and this probably applies to other departments as well—is that the faculty are only interested in (and known for) their research, and just go through the motions of teaching. But I think the degree only requires something like 7 courses to complete, which makes it seem reasonable enough on paper at least. How’s your experience as a transfer to the business school and as a finance major been overall so far? Thanks a lot for responding by the way; it’s been kinda tough to get feedback on the subject, mostly because I’m always asking questions that are tailored to transfers rather than to incoming freshmen.</p>
<p>As far as the business school goes, my professors have been really accessible and have seemed to be genuinely interested in helping their students. It might be different in the Econ department though. UT’s Econ program is ranked like 20th in the nation, so I would imagine a lot of professors are really vested in their research. One of my friends told me that in his MicroTheory class of about 100 students, 6 received an A. However, I think once you get above MicroTheory the courses get more interesting, slightly easier and potentially less math intensive (depending on what Econ courses you choose to take). </p>
<p>My experience as a transfer into McCombs has been really good. Since I got here, I’ve had 12 on-campus interviews set up by McCombs. They’ve ranged from investment banking to consulting to F100 corporate finance. I have two interviews coming up with BB investment banks in January. So the recruiting is really good.</p>
<p>Are you going to try for McCombs or are you more interested in Econ?</p>
<p>Well right now I’m planning to apply with finance as my first-choice major and econ as my second, since hopefully that way I’ll have the option to major in econ no matter what happens. One reason I’ve really been drawn to finance is that I’d like to strike more of a balance between theory and application, and econ by itself is a lot heavier on theory. Plus I’ve heard awesome things about the business school’s recruitment office, and finance is probably more relevant to economics than any of the other majors (such as accounting or MIS). Ideally I’d like to work for a management consultancy like BCG or McKinsey for a few years before going to graduate school. But I’d eventually like to pursue careers in both the public and private sectors, and econ seemed like the ideal subject to study in pursuit of that goal. One of my biggest frustrations of late has been that the econ instructors I’ve had in community college have rushed through a lot of the material that higher level courses most likely require you to already know, so I’m a little nervous about my own preparedness in that regard. I’m interested in both econ and finance, but I’m concerned that the micro/macro theory classes (not to mention econometrics) may be too much for me to handle.</p>
<p>Yes - finance is very practical and economics is very theoretical. The business school gets much better recruiting than the Econ majors, although some of the UT Econ majors do get prestigious jobs in investment banking, consulting, and other finance functions. </p>
<p>McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Booz and lots of other top tier consulting firms certainly recruit here at McCombs and UT overall, but they’re pretty competitive. You obviously won’t be the only one vying for those summer internships. A lot of the really exclusive consulting firms tend to focus on the BHP students. </p>
<p>When you say grad school, do you mean MBA or grad work in Econ. An undergrad degree in finance is not going to be good for grad work in economics.</p>
<p>I’m sort of leaving the door open to further graduate study in economics, but not in the form of a Ph.D, mostly because I think I’m aware enough of my own limitations to realize that while I may be able to do some advanced calculus, anything much beyond that is probably pushing it.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, I’m really not that into the idea of an MBA. I know it’s still years away, but right now my plan is to pursue a JD with a master’s in public affairs (or policy), which may have a significant economics proponent to it, depending on the school and how the degree is structured. There seems to be a burgeoning sentiment out there against going to law school, but a legal training seems to me better suited both to my personality and skills, as well as to the career path I’m hoping to pursue. Plus I would probably only end up pulling the trigger on law school if I somehow managed to get into a top-ranked institution, so my heart isn’t set on it.</p>
<p>As far as the big-name consulting jobs are concerned, I fully expect to experience stiff competitive headwinds for those entry-level positions, and really I’d be content to work for a firm that is maybe less well-known as long as they give me the chance to expand my horizons professionally and provide me with a strong foundation in business. What do you think of the finance major itself? (in terms of the degree’s structure, course difficulty, etc.)</p>
<p>Law school is fine as long as you get accepted into a T14 law school. Otherwise, it gets risky.</p>
<p>The finance major here is good. Since I just transferred in this year, I can’t really give you a ton of info on any upper-division courses. I just completed the introductory FIN 357 class, and it was pretty basic. The course actually requires a considerable amount of outside study time - more than I thought it would. It’s not like super hard or anything, but it’s certainly not blow-off either. The finance degree is really flexible too. After you complete the business school core, you take like 3 or 4 mandatory finance courses and then you choose 4 upper-division finance electives, and that’s it! All of my professors so far have also been readily available during office hours for individual attention.</p>
<p>The obvious pinnacle of McCombs, as with all the top 7-8 business schools (Stern, Ross, Hass…), is the recruiting.</p>
<p>One of the confusing things about the finance major that I’ve noticed is that the degree plan has both an upper-division core and a lower-division core. As a transfer, do you have to both or do you just have to complete the upper-division part? Just the upper-division core itself consists of something like five or six classes, according to the McCombs website at least. I’m mainly curious because having to take all those courses would definitely make it much harder to graduate on time while double-majoring.</p>