<p>I'm looking for a career in Investment Banking or Trading and right now I'm trying to decide which major to choose at UCLA.</p>
<p>I haven't heard people talk much about Mathematics/Economics B.S. at UCLA so if anyone here knows anyone who majors in it, knows anything about the major (besides the info from the UCLA website), or is majoring in it themselves, could that person please tell me how they like the major and what kind of work is done? I orginally wanted to major in Business Economics B.A. at UCLA but then I decided I just wanted to major in plain Economics B.A. simply because I wanted a more theoretical understanding of Economics. Now I fear that if I just major in Economics that I won't be 'quantitative' enough and that Mathematics/Economics will definitely help me 'quantify' myself. Also, anyone here major in Economics and what does he or she think about this major?</p>
<p>Also, I got rejected to UCLA via freshman admission so now I'm thinking of going to a community college. Right now I'm trying to decide between Santa Monica College or Pasadena City College. Could anyone speak their minds in regards to these colleges and give an opinion on which one they think is better and which one I should attend? They're both fairly close to where I live so now I need to find out which one to attend. My dad decided to take me to Pasadena City College today but it their nice website has told me much about it whereas Santa Monica College's cheaper website has not, so I'll probably visit Santa Monica instead.</p>
<p>Please leave feedback and thank you.</p>
<p>SMC has the highest UCLA transfer rate.</p>
<p>I actually know that but thanks.</p>
<p>I went to both and well both are actually closed. I thought SMC was pretty small and I didn't see what was sp special about it--it looked pretty ghetto compared to PCC. And PCC was like most people said, big and nice and almost like a Cal State.</p>
<p>The majority of people I know here who are going after the jobs you mentioned are majoring in Business Economics with a minor in Accounting. The minor in accounting provides a lot of the more technical information that the companies are looking for, so you don't really need to worry about "quantifying" yourself as you have described. In my opinion, Math/Econ is a useful and very versatile choice for things such as grad school-level econ, which is very math intensive--but it is probably unnecessary if you just want to use it to prove to employers that you are "quantitative." In addition, the math/econ major is as much a math major as it is an econ major, and it is also the longest of all of the econ majors in terms of number of courses. Just factors to take into consideration. And yea, not many people talk about it because not many people choose to major in it.</p>
<p>Also, a fair warning: transfer admission to any of the econ department majors is extremely competitive, with the most competitive of them being biz-econ. It's kind of believed here (maybe unfairly) that biz-econ and the people in biz-econ are "better" than the regular econ students, because the bar to get into biz-econ is set much higher for both new and transfer students. There's a stigma that a lot of people majoring in regular economics are those who didn't make it into biz-econ. Again, this is maybe an unfair stereotype, but it persists.</p>
<p>If Mathematics/Economics B.S. isn't necessar for Investment Banking or Trading then I'll probably be majoring in Business Economics, with a minor in Accounting.</p>
<p>I kind of thought of not majoring in Business Economics because I spoke to someone who majored it in and ended up in Accounting and not Investment Banking or Trading. The pre-requirements for Business Economics are less and it seems as if it is easier to maintain a higher gpa for Business Economics than it is for Mathematics/Economics. It feels sort of a shame that not many people major in Mathematics/Economics or that not that many people find it as useful as Business Economics.</p>
<p>Investment Banking and Trading are hard fields to break into regardless of what you major in, be it math/econ or biz-econ. It's not like either of those majors is an easy ticket into getting those jobs, because really, there is no easy ticket. It's just that biz-econ/accounting is probably your safest bet if you want to get into ibanking/trading from UCLA.</p>
<p>Well I'll major in Business Economics and minor in Accounting. That I will do :)</p>