<p>Hey everyone,
I'm a freshman here at CU... having a tough time choosing my major. I'm an engineering student but after this semester (after joining a project team, doing something related to what I'd thought would be interesting (electrical engineering)), I'm starting to think that I made a wrong decision. </p>
<p>I know for sure I don't wanna do anything hardcore electrical engineering (designing circuits, breadboarding stuff, etc.). I might be still interested in network engineering or Information Science, Systems, and Technology (ISST major)... </p>
<p>However, I'm also thinking finance/business... I know, I know, it's a cliche that an engineer wants to go into finances. Whatever. I don't wanna do economics, that's for sure. So, in case I want to do finance, which school would I have to transfer and how hard would it be to tranfer?</p>
<p>Another option for me would be staying in COE pursuing a network/ISST/etc major and then minoring in finance.</p>
<p>Have you thought about doing operations research? It’s a little less demanding then some of the other engineering majors and a lot go on to some of bigger banks (albeit more so in the technology side of things)</p>
<p>If you are set on entering a career in business, not in engineering, go switch over to AEM. The coursework will be significantly easier, you will get high grades with relative ease, and with AEM degree + high GPA, you will be competitive for finance/ consulting/ accounting employers. </p>
<p>You can break into finance with a degree in engineering, but why would you want to do that? Engineering is much tougher than AEM or other majors and you should try to avoid all that pain if you are sure you don’t want to pursue engineering for career.</p>
<p>Guys, I never said I want an easier workload. The amount of work I got my first semester was more than manageable. I’m just not sure what I’m really interested in. I’ll consider OR, not sure what they do though.</p>
<p>What do you mean why would an engineer want to have a finance/business minor? In case I’ll ever deal with money or perhaps want to start my own company… </p>
<p>Thanks though. What other majors are out there that deal with technology and maybe money at the same time?</p>
<p>I’d second looking at Operations Research [OR] because by what I’ve heard, it’s like business engineering like industrial engineering or something like that.</p>
<p>But, if you’re strongly leaning towards a business career, I’d say it might be smart to switch to AEM…</p>
<p>The major banks like taking OR majors for their technology operations and in general Cornell engineers have excellent placement. I have two friends who are senior OR majors who have landed jobs with JP Morgan and UBS making about 70K, not a bad deal at all.</p>
<p>Applied Physics may also be a decent major, you could still engineer but its more broad of a degree. I’m somewhat biased being a physics person myself :P</p>
<p>I’m confused, what exactly makes you want to go into finance in the first place? Did you participate in some finance-related activity that made you suddenly realize you have a passion for it?</p>
<p>^What’s so confusing about it? We’re freshmen- now is the time to explore :p</p>
<p>OP, I’ve talked to a couple of profs in OR about research/future goals, and a lot of them are not involved in finance, but the ones that do work in comp. fin./ fin. eng. aren’t very interested in working with undergrads (at least until we’ve taken a decent course in eng. stat and stochastics). So, if you’re looking to do research in finance while at Cornell, keep that in mind.</p>
<p>As far as job opportunities go, one of the profs said her best students usually end up as traders (quite a few in fx…) at BBs and apparently quite a few end up at BlackRock.</p>
<p>If you’re looking for more exposure into the field, then check out some of the organizations we have on campus- micc, cic, befo, cvc, alphafund, etc. Also the business frats dsp/akpsi</p>