is a business major useless?

<p>i just started researching, and i used to have an interest in majoring in business, but now not so. alot of people are saying it's useless, and that you dont need it to make a business (well duh) but dont you need it to be a CEO of a company, or anything else? etc.... like something below being the boss?</p>

<p>Who are these “alot of people” and what alternatives do they offer?</p>

<p>In general, you re going to find the STEM degrees to be more employable at higher salaries. Of course, such degrees aren’t for everyone and not all of the majors are golden tickets. However, degrees in accounting, finance, and business economics are pretty good degrees to have and are business degrees. When you start going into softer business majors like marketing and management, then you may find it more difficult to get the jobs with higher salaries as easily. But they are still better than social science and humanity degrees. There is no one path and I do know people who have degrees which are generally regarded as totally useless and have done very well for themselves.</p>

<p>an engineer major? would that be any better, followed by an MBA?</p>

<p>Yes. engineering degree is very good.</p>

<p>I hope that the OP is a high school freshman. She has a lot to learn before heading to college. </p>

<p>With an engineering degree, an MBA may or may not be necessary. Get you BS, work, and worry about that later.</p>

<p>why is it that some ‘studies’ show that a business major can make or rather does make roughly the same amount of income as an engineer?</p>

<p>but then people online (my only resource) keep saying that it ‘sucks’ and ‘doesn’t really pay off’ since there’s a low employment rate…etc.etc? so is it useless or not? i mean if its making an income that is roughly the same as an engineer it really isn’t? right?</p>

<p>Engineers tend to make higher salaries.</p>

<p>Here are a couple sources.</p>

<p><a href=“http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term=”>http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term=&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.bls.gov/ooh/”>http://www.bls.gov/ooh/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>According to this Wall Street Journal writer, undergrad business majors are a dime a dozen</p>

<p><a href=“http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304072004577323754019227394?mobile=y”>http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304072004577323754019227394?mobile=y&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>GMTplus7, that’s a good article. It isn’t that a business major is useless, rather you need to develop other skills to go with it. I am a firm believer in people developing communications skills - oral and written, analysis skills and computer savvy (and it always surprises me that people who have used computers for years still really don’t understand its power). </p>

<p>well in that case, will a major in engineering make me more ‘desirable’ towards employers? which one would be the better of the two, in terms of making me seem better. obviously if i’m competing for a job, they most likely will judge me base on my major, so if one applicant was a business major and the other engineer, which one would they pick if all other aspects of the person was the exact same?</p>

<p>Depends on the job. Business and engineering are very generic terms. If you need an accountant, obviously you aren’t going to hire an engineering or a marketing major. If you need an electrical engineer, you aren’t going to hire a chemical engineering major. What you need to do is decide what you want to do in life, then work towards it. </p>