<p>I think im interested in a career in international business, but I was told in a past forum that it would be better for me to do a double major of something like economics and spanish. I was also thinking of a minor in french. I think economics is a good idea because im not sure exactly what I want to do, so does this major give me opprtunities in both business and goverenment? Is this a better choice rather than doing international business and a double major of spanish with a minor of french? help...</p>
<p>Economics and international business administration (IBA) sounds about right.</p>
<p>I did finance and IBA. I studied French since H.S. then when in the military I became a French linguist after going to the Defense Language Institute. It’s A military intelligence school that take in students from all services, the FBI, CIA, and State Department foreign service (NSA is a Defense Department agency). I was in Army Special Operations, specifically Civil Affairs.</p>
<p>Language choice depends on where you want to do business. </p>
<p>Most of the people I contract with have international experience, military experience, and development experience. The government officials I deal with are all usually economists. You need at least a masters in economics to be an economist. Most have PhD’s. They don’t have business degrees and struggle with the private sector because economics is not business. It does not prepare you to do business. It’s only okay if you’re in a top school. Otherwise econ majors go on to get their PhD’s or go to law school. <– Not all do, but it is the most practical thing to do.</p>
<p>anymore thoughts???</p>
<p>What Tort is saying is misleading at best. For one, the term “business” is way too vague to be making the statement that economics majors are not well prepared for business. Second, it depends on what concentration you focus on as an undergrad or grad student. A majority of economics majors work in business and are very successful at it. Here’s a list of some of the courses economics majors have to choose from (taken from utexas.edu). Tell me now how this isn’t at least decent preparation for a business career.</p>
<p>-Money and banking
-Industrial organization
-Labor economics
-Financial economics
-Issues in business economics
-International trade & investment</p>
<p>Now obviously you may choose to focus on a different area. For example if you wanted to work in the public or academic sector you would choose classes like public economics, game theory, political economy and comparative economics systems. If you wanted to work with statistics you would choose econometrics, economic statistics, and computational economics. </p>
<p>As further evidence, here’s a list of the most popular jobs taken by economics majors (from payscale):</p>
<p>-Financial Analyst
-Credit Analyst
-Business Analyst
-Securities Trader
-Financial Advisor
-Data Analyst
-Sales Director
-Banking Manager</p>
<p>I think it’s false to claim that economics majors are not well suited for the business world. Tort admitted to working with government economists, so clearly they focused their studies, internships, and work experience on the public policy subfield of economics and not the finance/business aspect of economics.</p>