<p>I am not sure what I want to major in yet. I am pretty sure that i am either going to go to pre-med or business. If I want to get an MBA, and be a successful business man is it necessary for me to major in economics or business? If i major in something else, but i still decide to go to get an MBA in another field such as marketing, will i receive as many opportujnities, and be considered just as worthy as someone who majored in business. What about interships, will they want to hire someone who is not studying business? Bottome line, is it necessary to major in business in order to reach maximum success in business or can i just get an MBA?</p>
<p>This is a tricky question. The short answer is no, it doesn't matter. In most top business schools, the percentage of mba candidates whose undergrad degrees was in something other than a business or economics field is often greater than 50%.</p>
<p>However, graduate b-schools consider work experience to be the biggest factor. And clearly, you can't get that ibanking job with Goldman or the consulting offer from McKinsey without a business major unless you're from an Ivy or school of similar caliber.</p>
<p>To sum things up, no, a business degree is not needed because work experience is usually the largest factor. However, a business degree will heavily influence those relevant and competitive work experience options available to you.</p>
<p>I posted this message last week. take a look. </p>
<p>"2. "But business program is preferable since I am gonna do MBA. MBA prefers people with previous business expertise."</p>
<p>Wrong. Again, very wrong. MBA program dont have any kind of preference on the types of major. Over 30% of the MBA students have engineering backgrounds. The only requirement for the admission to MBA programs is calculus and some basic accounting courses. And you should be able to take these courses at any school even if you are not majoring business or econ degree.</p>
<p>Actually for that matter, most MBA program actually prefer students with some funky undergraduate majors for obvious diversity factors. So if you want to get into MBA programs with the help of your major, try to major in Asian American studies, Biochemistry, Art, Music, or Western History majors.</p>
<p>In this way, you would make yourself stand out more. Majoring business or econ programs would only put you in the bucket of thousands and thousands of virtually identical candidates."</p>
<p>if you take a pre-med track but end up wanting to go business, perhaps you could combine the both... work in biotechnology or pharmaceuticals? those are emerging fields that may become hot in the future.</p>
<p>"In this way, you would make yourself stand out more. Majoring business or econ programs would only put you in the bucket of thousands and thousands of virtually identical candidates."</p>
<p>DaRaverLA, you make it seem as though majoring in business would be detrimental to one's business school chances. This is not the case considering business administration is far and away the most popular undergrad major of most b-school students.</p>
<p>if you read his other posts youll know that he definitely encourages those to go under biz econ, but in any case if they can't because of various reasons. it is not the end of the world, people still have a very likely chance of surviving in the business world.</p>
<p>No, it wasn't explicitly stated but you say that going the business route would condemn (my word) oneself to being the same as every other b-school applicant and thereby not stand out.</p>
<p>Yet the reason most b-school applicants were undergrad business majors is that it is extremely difficult to get the top business jobs without a business major unless you go to a ELITE school such as an Ivy, or you go to a really really good school that doesn't offer business as a major.</p>
<p>I realize that you're likely much more well-versed on this topic than I, but I can't shake the recurring statement from recruiters that one should show a devloped interest in the type of business job they're going after -- first and foremost by making it their major. After all, no ibank is going to hire an asian studies major who doesn't have a clue what an income statement is when there are plenty of biz econ grads who do.</p>
<p>If this were on the Harvard board then I would not be objecting, but the reality is that investment banks and other elite business jobs that one can go into out of undergrad are still mired in their East-Coast biased, gothic architecture loving ways. To have a realistic shot at these jobs (and this post applies only to them), one must major in biz econ or econ at UCLA. To do any less would be detrimental.</p>
<p>To have a realistic shot at these jobs (and this post applies only to them), one must major in biz econ or econ at UCLA. To do any less would be detrimental.</p>
<p>Well, I got the impression from those I bankers that they care far more about your GPA than the type of majors you had.</p>
<p>They are pretty open about interviewing people with "funky" majors.</p>
<p>However, as you are probably implying, you DO need to take some sort of previous financial/advanced mathematic classes before sitting for an interview.</p>