<p>I currently go to NIU in DeKalb IL where they offer both a BS and BA in Econ.</p>
<p>I don't mind the math, but I can finish 1 semester earlier if I did the BA.</p>
<p>My question is does a BA/BS Matter to employers?</p>
<p>Honestly, at a school like NIU, your best bet at getting a job is to major in Accounting.</p>
<p>The only places where I have seen Econ majors land really great jobs are the Ivy league schools and schools like Duke and Northwestern.</p>
<p>i honestly took a financial accounting class and couldnt stand it. i know its a good major but i’m not interested in it at all.</p>
<p>i use to be a computer science major but couldn’t stand the programming, if i wanted to do something for finding a job that i didnt like but paid well, i would of stuck with that.</p>
<p>Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but based on what I know about NIU, it likely doesn’t matter whether you receive a BS or BA in economics. It simply isn’t an in-demand major.</p>
<p>If you can’t stand financial accounting then I don’t recommend an economics degree in the first place. Finance & accounting are essentially the career side of an economics degree.</p>
<p>What exactly are you trying to do as a career miketanner?</p>
<p>from what i understand econ is the best degree out of all the business degrees, accounting and finance included. </p>
<p>[Most</a> Lucrative College Majors - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2008/06/18/college-majors-lucrative-lead-cx_kb_0618majors.html]Most”>Most Lucrative College Majors)</p>
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<p>my bro recently did an economics degree from Kennesaw State U in georgia and got 60 k starting right out of school. </p>
<p>of course im not sure if this means a BBA in economics or not but i dont think it really matters to be honest. from what i understand bba has more business classes were bs has more math.</p>
<p>that being said i’d do the BS or BBA, you’ll have better job prospects and you’ll show employers that you didn’t take the easy way and skip the math and statistics.</p>
<p>"from what i understand econ is the best degree out of all the business degrees, accounting and finance included. "</p>
<p>Wrong. CPAs are in much more demand coming out of undergrad than econ majors. </p>
<p>Now, if you happen to attend a school like Duke or Harvard, an econ degree is valuable. However, at a school like Kennesaw, you have a much better chance of landing a job with an Acct. degree.</p>
<p>A CPA isn’t a college major though, accounting is, and many of you on here forget how many accountants don’t bother with the public side of things and are content making low salaries in exchange for 30 hour work weeks. That has to bring down the average on those “most lucrative majors” lists.</p>
<p>My economics program gives me enough accounting classes to sit for the CPA, and some “quantitative economics” degrees are basically harder finance degrees. On the other hand, there are economics degrees at some schools are are taught almost entirely by the social science department and basically a sociology degree.</p>
<p>The great downfall of economics as a major is that it can mean literally anything. People know what you studied if you walk in with an accounting degree. With an economics degree, they practically have to read through your transcripts.</p>
<p>Even so, I still wouldn’t recommend someone who hates accounting major in economics. Accounting is the one thing you can safely assume you will encounter at some point in any money-related degree including econ/finance. That’s the same as the people who find out 3 years into medical school that they don’t like being around old people who cough a lot.</p>
<p>“and many of you on here forget how many accountants don’t bother with the public side of things and are content making low salaries in exchange for 30 hour work weeks”</p>
<p>When I was in school, starting salaries for private accounting were approx. 90% of public salaries. As a result, I’m not sure that it would be fair to say that the people that choose private are making low salaries. </p>
<p>Also, I worked in both a Big Four firm and in finance at a publicly traded company, and none of the accountants at the publicly traded company worked less than a 40 hour week. In fact, during monthly close, they worked around 50 to 6o hours per week.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to imply a massive income gap between public/private. Mostly I was just replying to the links batosaim’s posted. As someone studying both economics and accounting it puzzled me for a while why economics always seems to rate higher on the salary surveys (who the heck is hiring an “economist?”).</p>
<p>The only explanation I can think of comes from my own experiences watching my peers graduate.</p>
<p>While some did chase the salary and the working hours (especially those who went for their CPA, and the average for these is likely well above that of economics graduates) there are others (mostly women, no offense intended) who fled from the 60+ hour weeks and got a job at a small business or hotel working fewer than 40 hours per week. It has to really drop the median salary and makes accounting look less lucrative than it actually is.</p>
<p>OP I go to NIU and am majoring in accounting with a minor in economics. Trust me when I tell you it is night and day between the two majors. Honestly if your gonna go with the Econ major (and you shouldn’t) then I’d definitely go for the B.S. because that will prep your for grad school work (which you will have to do) and maybe tack on a math minor if not double major.</p>
<p>I wanted to double major in economics because I too had a interest in it. The thing is what are you gonna do with a Econ degree? Be a economist? Not with a degree from NIU I’m afraid. My honest opinion, suck it up and do accounting if you want to do anything with a degree from NIU. Or at least do something in the business school. Good school for business and accounting, not for anything else.</p>