<p>I will be attending UT's liberal arts school next year. But with UT having a prestigious business school, and what I read from a thread here, I'm worried that employers will think I'm some kind of b-school reject trying to do quasi-business. But in reality, I would rather major in econ than business any day of the week. I absolutely love econ, and I'm even reading plenty of books on my own of economics theories. Plus, UT's econ school seems to be really good. </p>
<p>My goal right now is law schol, not investment banking (maybe MBA down the line, but I digress)</p>
<p>Will I really be viewed as a reject of McCombs? And what can I do to change that? </p>
<p>Hey, we should talk. I could have gotten into mccombs, but I chose economics because I have a genuine love for the subject. It makes me mad that some have that perception, but most of that talk is just insecure business majors trying to feel better about themselves. Plus, if there is a lot of business school rejects in economics then its sort of good news for us because we should be able to outperform them quite easily.</p>
<p>You should consider a quantitative track if you have a true love of economics. For one, I’ve read that to truly get the beauty of economics you have to see it mathematically. And two, people with quant skills possibly have the best career choices of any college grads.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter if people see it that way. If you love economics and truly want to do it, then do it. You’re not a McCombs reject unless you apply for McCombs and get rejected.</p>
<p>I’m not really worried about what insecure business majors think or my overall perception. But if I ever apply for business-related jobs or internships, I hope I don’t come off as someone who tried to do business, and is settling for the next best thing. My first choice was actually Cockrell (engineering). I pretty much decided not to do business, because I hear undergrad business education is relatively weak. </p>
<p>And yes Inmotion, we should talk. I’ve seen your posts before but it’s cool to know I may see you next year. I will definitely do the quantitative track. I was originally disappointed that UT didn’t offer a BS in Econ (because the other school I was considering did have that option). So I will definitely go that path.</p>
<p>“I hear undergrad business education is relatively weak.”</p>
<p>We all get that you don’t want to do Business, but there’s no need to knock it. It’s a highly ranked school on the national scale, with the highest recruitment rate on campus - there’s nothing “weak” about McCombs or the general idea of undergraduate business.</p>
<p>There are two major distinctions that need to be made when reading that article:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The article makes a point to differentiate between top 50 business schools and those below that ranking. It never directly praises the top business schools, and in fact takes a subtle jab or two at them, but it does heavily imply that the top business schools give a much better, tougher, and useful education than those below them.</p></li>
<li><p>The article also differentiates between accounting, finance, and MIS majors (it should probably put SCM in this group) and what is considers to be the more useless majors of management, administration, marketing, and the rest. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I definitely respect most Mccombs students, and I reserve most of that respect for accounting, finance, MIS, and SCM majors. </p>
<p>I’m really into entrepreneurship and if I could start a business with a team of 10 entry-level majors these are the ones I would choose:</p>
<p>1- accounting major
1- finance major
1- MIS major
1- Marketing or communications major
2- Economics majors
2- CS/math/physics majors
2- engineers or scientists, disciplines depend on what kind of business it was.</p>
<p>Note: The SCM major wouldn’t be needed until the business started really growing.</p>
<p>If I could choose only five majors I would eliminate all of the business majors except the accountant, and I would keep 1 eco major, 1 or 2 engineering majors, and 1 or 2 CS/math majors. I’m interested in high tech so I would probably go with 2 CS/math guys.</p>
<p>frelations, if an employer happened to be a McCombs alum or something and asked you why you didn’t do a business major, you should simply point to your passion for economics and math and make it clear that, because of this reason, economics was your first choice. Trust me, a competent employer is going to want that kind of guy on their team. If they’re stupid enough to discriminate against you for not choosing business, then you’re definitely not going to want to start a career with someone like that.</p>
<p>I actually WANT a liberal arts and natural sciences education. I actually might take an extra year to graduate just because I’m looking at all these history, philosophy, and other liberal arts courses and reading the instructor bios, and I feel like I’d be really robbing myself of an incredible experience if I chose not to enrich my mind with those courses. There is an opportunity cost associated with it, but I’m only going to be an undergrad once and I may never have the opportunity to be educated by such brilliant minds again.</p>
<p>I am in the exact same position you are in. I read your original post. Every thing you said matches up with my goals/thoughts…</p>
<p>I didn’t apply to become a business major because I really DO enjoy economics for what it is worth. I could have gotten into the business school if I wanted to, but I chose to take another route.</p>
<p>I, too, want to go to graduate law school after obtaining my undergrad degree in economics.</p>
<p>@Inmotion: Couldn’t agree more. I really want some breadth in my education, which is part of why I didn’t want to do a vocational/pre-professional major like engineering or business. I’m probably going to take a philosophy course just to satisfy the humanities requirement, and I may minor if I like it. </p>
<p>@kames: Great to see someone else in the same boat. Are you going to UT?</p>
<p>I know this isn’t the original topic, but it’s a little short-sighted to relegate engineering as a vocational degree. You’ll find that all those critical thinking skills employers hire for across industries are very strongly developed in engineering. Sure, some EE kids end up in EE companies like Intel, Freescale, NI etc. However, many engineering grads are doing nothing remotely close to what they studied in college (finance, marketing, consulting, management etc.) and outpacing their business & liberal arts counterparts.</p>
<p>Yeah I know, I was strongly considering engineering at some point, and did some research (including some on this forum). Well, my point was that with engineering, I have very little room to study other areas, and I want to have a bit more breadth. It requires too much coursework specifically because it trains you to have a specific job. Also, I ended up backing away from it because it felt pointless if so many people end up switching out because their salaries peak so fast. I know engineers develop really good qualitative abilities for other careers, but I think I can achieve that by just taking advanced math courses.</p>
<p>@foreignrelations: Inmotion has it right. No matter how weak or narrow you might ‘think’ undergraduate business is, all you have to look at is the amazing job rates AND grad schools that McCombs graduates get into. Maybe Business isn’t strong at a general scale, but McCombs is an exception to that rule by far. McCombs is one of the most popular schools to get into at UT (and most highly ranked) for a reason. I may be wrong, but it sounds like you have some beef with Business in general.</p>
<p>Again, I don’t hate or have any beefs with business. I’ve just heard that business education isn’t very good GENERALLY. I’m fully aware of the kind of employment that McComb’s kids get. I personally want to study something less pre-professtional, but it’s just my preference.</p>