<p>I plan to major in business-related field, and I have already applied to JHU as well as NYU - Stern and other competitive schools with strong business program/economics department.
does anyone know how good the JHU econ dept is?
(both in the quality of education and respect accorded by employers)</p>
<p>OK I'm going to say something that may scare people. But If I were to want to go to business school I would not major in economics. Everybody majors in economics. Everybody sits down and starts thinking about what to do with their life and economics seems to be the answer most people come to, that and political science. I know some colleges where Econ. is the biggest major. I can imagine (I don't know for sure, this is a 100% guess) that business schools are getting sick of seeing economics majors, and if they are not they expect them to stand out in someway from the deluge of econ majors. If you want to go to business school do something in your undergrad years that you enjoy or that you can later use to compliment that business degree. An undergrad degree in business is useless anyway and will be overshadowed by any business degree. To me a BA in economics also doesn't seem very useful, I mean do people really go on to ever use the theories of markets and stuff that they learned at work? And don't tell me that it guides them because most of the basis for the theories are common sense anyway which any good businesman has without economics. Anyway good luck in chosing a life path. That was my $0.02 before interest.</p>
<p>that's a very good point, scorp.
but my concern is that if I major in a totally unrelated field (say, art history), where would I be able to find a business oriented job once I graduate out of college? I plan to work a few years before I get to go to a business school, for financial concern and other reasons.
also, if I major in an unconventional field, wouldn't I be ill-prepared for the rigorous workload at most business schools?</p>
<p>P.S: For the curiosity's sake, how strong really is the econ dept at JHU, anyway? :-)</p>
<p>You should read "Liar's Poker" by Michael Lewis. He majored in art history at princeton and ended up in wall street.</p>
<p>thanks for a great reference, xeal. you enlightened me on my ignorant comment about majoring in art history.
but.. arent they somewhat rare circumstances? I mean, its obvious that one may choose "any" undergraduate major and still be accepted to a med school, but someone who major in biology will be at a definite advantage as far as academic is concerned (and the majority of med school acceptees have a degree in natural science anyway).
so my logic would be: the same goes for business school.
sure, I may be able to find my way into business management after having a college degree in archaeology, classics, or any other field, but is it really likely to happen?</p>
<p>P.S: how strong is the econ dept by the way?!?! lol</p>
<p>Your best bet is to ask current students on the hopkins message board. There are quite a few students that JHU has hand-picked to respond to questions like these. <a href="http://apply.jhu.org/hi%5B/url%5D">http://apply.jhu.org/hi</a></p>
<p>The whole econ -> business school argument seems quite similar to the bio -> med school debate. Just major in what you're interested in. I happen to want to be a doctor and I'm most interested in biology, so thats what my major will be. I'm also interested in film, physics, and economics and hopkins offers minors in all of these areas.</p>