is this true?

<p>I had a conversation with a high level finance person. He's telling me that in these bad economic times, they'd hire more good-performing business majors from target schools than the engineering and hard science major.
He told me when the economy is good, they'd rather hire the engineering and hard science major because of their proven quantitative skills and that they have plenty of money/time to slowly develop them, while when the economy's bad, they try to cut the training time/cost and put readily avalible business majors in.
He basically said engineers have higher ceiling in general because of the quantitative skills, but not as ready because they need more information about business, more training. The business major generall have a lower ceiling but high floor because they already know half the stuff, but may not be as good quantitatively.</p>

<p>Is this true?</p>

<p>I'd believe it. You get 95% of your finance knowledge on the job. I've talked to Ross grads, and they said their undergrad business education PALED in comparison to the finance they learned once they started working for their companies. IMO, it's better to learn a skill in college, like math or engineering (perhaps coupled with an economics degree). You won't be taught advanced quantitative skills on the job, but you certainly will learn the finance- if you are hired because of your aptitude and mathematical skill.</p>