<p>I am currently a freshman in college trying to plan out my course schedule for four years (I llike to plan ahead). Thanks to AP credits I'll have a lot of time on my hands, so much so I'm am strongsly considering getting a dual degree in something (as opposed to graduating early).I am very interested in engineering (math, physics, problem solving are all right up my alley) but I would like to be on the business side of it because I think that is where I will accel. I am currently trying to decide between NE, ME, and IOE, but that is another story.</p>
<p>My first thought was going to be to get a BBA. My only concern is that it seems like a lot of engineers get an MBA after college while working with their company, essentially making it a very redundant process if you already got a BBA. So I am wondering if it would really be worth it, or if I should try to do something else. Thanks for any comments.</p>
<p>A BBA is pretty much never worth it. You can ask most business professionals and professors and they will tell you an undergrad degree in BA is almost completely useless. Just wait and get an MBA later if you really are that interested.</p>
<p>Instead, use the light schedule to take comparatively easy semesters and therefore boost your GPA.</p>
<p>I guess I could… I just have some really light semsters, like I’ll have to find **** to do to be considered a full time student.</p>
<p>Looking at it too I am not sure how well a degree from CoE and The Ross school of Business overlay. It’d be tougher to fit that into 4 years than I thought cuz of the order I need to go in.</p>
<p>The thing is though its 50k to go here OOS. I don’t wanna have a light schedule, seems like a waste. I talked to my parents about graduating early and they said not to worry about it… so I am back to finding something extra to take…</p>
<p>maybe I could just spend a semester co-oping or something</p>
<p>Well the dual BBA BSE program at Umich is designed to take 4.5 years. So when I shorten it to 4 years and chose a more intense engineering (NE) it really looks full. I’m not sure it’ll be possible. </p>
<p>Also, it seems the more I read the less a BBA is worth it.</p>
<p>If there is no good reason why you need a double major, again you should consider get your feet on industry as soon as possible.</p>
<p>But if you like economy that’s fine. You certainly don’t have to declare your second major until senior year, seriously. all you need to do is to keep on taking the classes.
well just use the liberal art tracks to build your economy requirement.</p>
<p>which would reduce what you would have to take in the MBA program. You can knock out the Economics by using it for your Social Science general education credits. If the school is big enough, it might offer a Survey of Accounting or Accounting for Engineers which is one course instead of taking 2 regular-strength Accounting courses. Your “Statistics for Engineers & Scientists” course will be more than enough for the Statistics requirement. Just take Management, Finance and Marketing as electives.</p>
Well, I guess I’m not the typical MBA (note: I have a Stanford MBA, but am not in Engineering in any way): I had NO Accounting as an undergrad. Almost none of my classmates did either. I had no Marketing, Management or Finance as an undergrad either.</p>
<p>Had I taken them as an undergrad, I still would have had to take them at Stanford in the MBA program (YMMV). I did have, as an Econ. major, the Economics and Statistics. But people didn’t and they had, at Stanford, some “Economics for Poets” courses, etc., lol.</p>
<p>Back to the original question, no one right answer of course. I’d like to see you think less about the dual degree. I don’t think it will “get” you anything in the job market much more than the BSE along with whatever selected business courses you might like to take as electives. You can feature them on your resume when relevant. I also think you might use this time the way many of us who look back wish we had - take those kinds of courses you may never get a chance to so easily again… Music, an instrument, some weird (or not-so-weird) language you’d like to try, Art, Astronomy… whatever pulls at you as you browse the catalog.</p>
<p>Graduating early not a bad idea either, in today’s economy more people think about it.</p>
<p>You are right. I should have stated that one would NOT have to take the undergraduate business courses while being in a MBA program. My point (which I did not make clear at all) was to take the undergrad business courses within your own major…instead of doing a dual-degree.</p>
<p>I agree that graduating early might be a good choice for you, but if you are set in staying the whole time, you might consider adding a foreign language or two. Business classes are not very worthwhile, and it does not sound like you are so into engineering that a math or physics minor or major would be worth it, but many companies really like multilingual employees (especially with MBA aspirations) and it is not something you can just pick up anywhere.</p>
<p>I’ve heard so much conflicting info about graduating early that I don’t even know what to think anymore. And to graduate early (well a year early) I would have to start engineering classes next semester… and I am not sure whether I want to do NE or ME now.</p>
<p>I just was thinking to do a dual degree because I’ll have the free time, and if I am gonna do ME I want something to differentiate me from the pack.</p>
<p>Also I am very into engineering. I love math, physics, and problem solving. I just feel like I also have a business type of mind. So if I could combine my love for more theoretical things with the practicality or business, that would be great.</p>
<p>Oh, and I am not a big liberal arts/cultural kind of guy. I realize it may be important to be familar with other cultures, but when I finished Spanish III as a sophomore, I knew I was done.</p>
<p>Then you may want to consider looking into fields like industrial or systems engineering. Those fields tend a little more towards the management side of things, and some classes in those areas may show you a good path for your career. Alternately, you can never have too much math (in my opinion) - regardless of whether you wind up in engineering or management, a strong math background will really help.</p>
<p>well that’s fine because I enjoy math, I’d probably be doing that anyway.</p>
<p>They have a department called Industry and Operations Engineering but I’m not sold on it, I still feel ME or NE would be a better choice. At least I don’t need this all figured out for a few months</p>
<p>Any BS in engineering >> any BBA in most cases. I would focus on the engineering degree and even a minor in business, the minor would probably be very easy, but the double major would be overkill in my opinion. There are plenty of people with engineering degrees that work in sales and many other more business oriented positions that do not have a BBA. Like I always say, engineers can work in business but business majors can not work in engineering. An engineering degree is versitile, in that it qualifies you for technical positions but does not exclude you from many non-technical positions.</p>
<p>Engineering degrees require A LOT of work. You might think life is easy now, but once you get to upper divisions, you’ll find that another major and your engineering major could be difficult. A lot of engineering majors graduate in 5 years, so be glad if you graduate in 4.</p>
<p>This is just a warning haha. An engineering degree is good enough to get you a good job.</p>
<p>well this is how I stand. I’ll have about 35 credits outside of the U of M. So if you factor that out of the projected schedule, I have semesters where I NEED to add more to maintain a full time student standing. </p>
<p>I broke down my options and sub-options like this:
-graduate a year early (work only on engineering)
-go into workforce then
-start on masters and be down in total in 4 years
-graduate a semester early (work only on engineering, lighter load then above)
-go into workforce then
-start on masters and be down in total in 4.5 years
-stay four years (work only on engineering, VERY light course load)
-stay four years and get a degree and a minor
-business minor
-lsa minor (econ, math, etc.)
-stay four years and work on two degrees
-add a BBA
-add an LSA degree (math, econ, etc.)
-try two engineering degress and see how they overlap</p>
<p>^^^(some of the above combinations may not be possible, but most are)^^^</p>
<p>and then on top of all this I’m trying to decide between doing NE and being specialized, or ME and being less specialized. I’m leaning toward ME.</p>
<p>I’ve go a pretty good idea of my career goals, I am just unsure of some of the steps to get there. The one step I do know of though is that the University of Michigan is one of the best schools in the country and one of the best engineering schools in the world, and that’ll pay off.</p>