<p>I'm entering NU as a freshman this fall, and currently, I have chosen Economics as my major because I personally believe that becoming more knowledge in that area will be more beneficial than harmful in the future. However, since I was in the 9th grade, I had the intention of entering a business school (like Kellog) upon my graduation from WCAS and attaining an MBA (hopefully). I know NU doesn't offer Business as a major, but it does offer Business as a minor. Should I major in Economics and minor in Business? Or, will doing so be a bit difficult and not wise of me? </p>
<p>Any insightful and useful input will be appreciated! Thanks!</p>
<p>first, probably 99% of mba students have worked after undergrad, so don’t count on going to b-school after graduation. secondly, go ahead with the minor and don’t worry about it being too hard. also, if you are decent at math, check out the kellogg cpu program.</p>
<p>The “Business” minor is the “Business Institutions Program” and it’s not actually a ‘business’ minor like you are thinking of. It’s easy to finish, especially as an econ major, but if you’re interested in going to business school one day and/or working in finance I would recommend a math minor rather than BIP. </p>
<p>BIP is pretty much just a broad social sciences minor, mostly used as a way for people with softer majors to try and improve their resumes before interviewing for business-y positions, predicating on the idea that the recruiters won’t know any better. I say this as a BIP minor myself.</p>
<p>Yes, I am talking about BIP. Are you an Econ major as well? So you would recommend my minoring in Math rather than “business,” right? </p>
<p>Yeah, I’m pretty decent at Math. I got a 5 on my Calc BC exam, if that means anything. I actually got an invitation to enter MENU, but I thought about declining the offer…</p>
<p>Now that you mention the Kellogg CPU program, I’m interested in it. I know that you can apply as a junior/senior, but what are the benefits of graduating from the program? I browsed through the CPU site, and I need to take some MENU courses to be eligible for it, right? =/</p>
<p>A lot of MENU kids drop out after the first and second quarters. Its just super hard if math is not your passion. I’ve heard that it may be upwards of 50% of MENU kids that start it dont finish. However, I have heard that you can still do the Kellogg program with just the regular math sequence. That being said, you also have to take a few other tough classes just to apply, and Its fairly competitive. Major in economics, if you like math, try minoring or majoring in it, you’ll be fine with it or BIP or whatever, minors dont really matter that much. I actually dislike the whole kellogg certificate crowd, just too ultracompetitive, all-I-want-to-be-is-an-investment-banker types. </p>
<p>I’m an econ major, yes. I would definitely recommend math over BIP, but that’s just me personally. For business school, econ/math will look better than econ/BIP. Also a math minor will help you perform better in your econ major. Northwestern now allows you to double minor (just this year they started allowing it) so you could actually technically do both if you wanted.</p>
<p>I personally think MENU without MMSS is just an unnecessarily difficult process without much recognition for your efforts, but that’s also an opinion - I didn’t do either so maybe someone who did can tell you more.</p>
<p>Kind off from the OP’s question, but I want to know how difficult it is to major in Econ & IE while also pursuit the Kellogg Certificate in Junior/Senior year?</p>
<p>Top business schools rarely accept people without few years of working experience. There could be exceptions of course but you would have to be very exceptional (like one of the Rhodes scholars from NU this year; the girl founded and heads a tutoring program for immigrants on top of triple-majoring). </p>
<p>By then, the important factors are your leadership potential, working experience (that shows leadership potential and drive…etc), essays, recommedation letters from coworkers/supervisors, and GMAT scores. What your undergrad major is matters very little, if at all. In that sense, it doesn’t matter whether you minor in BIP or math.</p>
<p>Many undergrad (or even graduate) business programs are pretty soft. BIP minor is probably just like that. On the other hand, it’d still give you some basic knowledge and a big picture of what “business” is about. Some basic skills in accounting is always helpful.</p>
<p>For practical reason, I’d recommend statistics minor over math minor or math minor with mostly applied courses if possible (statistics/model for finance…etc) if you want something more rigorous than BIP. Things like topology and abstract algebra are fairly useless in business setting. But knowledge in statistics would likely come in more handy, especially for “analyst” jobs.</p>
<p>^McCormick permits double-counting between Econ and IE. There should be plenty of room for Kellogg certificate. The real challenge is to do well in all the relatively tough pre-reqs, get in, and handle the rigorous certificate program.</p>
<p>Accounting isn’t required for the BIP minor, though it does count as an elective (it is also an econ elective). In fact, I if someone were to compile the requirements on the BIP website, I think it would result in about 50% of the Weinberg undergraduate course catalog being counted as a BIP elective (check out the “substitutions” tab, especially). Just a few gems:</p>
<p>History 385 History of India
History 275 - History of Western Science and Medicine
History 391 - African Civil Wars in the Late 20th Century
Philosophy 268 - Ethics & the Environment
Political Science 346 - Politics of European Unification
Political Science 390 - Politics, the Press and the Presidential Campaign
Radio, Television, Film 342 - Television Programming & Planning
Sociology 321 - Armed Forces and Society
Sociology 350 - Sociology of the Arts
Theatre 350 - Production Management</p>
<p>As you can see, BIP is really not a business minor in any traditional sense (though some make it more business-y than others, but this is just as easy to do with an econ major alone while saving your minor for something valuable such as math). Even the website makes it clear that:</p>
<p>“the program is not intended to be preprofessional training or to function as a business concentration within any single departmental major. It is conceived as a broad, multidisciplinary perspective on a significant area of inquiry.”</p>
<p>The points Sam Lee makes about the statistics/math minor: I definitely agree with him.</p>