Is Undergrad Business Worth It?

College Majors Business Major
1

<h2>I posted this on a different thread, but I wanted to see what other people's opinions are on this subject.</h2>

<p>Perhaps, I'm biased and uninformed. Feel free to tell me so if you think I am. After all, I'm not even studying business(though I was considering it). Instead, I will be studying Econ at Northwestern. But I believe that undergrad business is the worst major anyone can select(with an exception to a small core of schools). I feel that our country is producing more and more useless business majors every year, while other nations are beefing up their science and technology programs and producing the next generation of talent in our world.</p>

<p>I personally feel that there are only a few schools worth going to for undergrad business. There are a lot of programs where I don't see the long term value of an ug business degree. A business degree does not give you a free ticket into upper level management later in one's career. In the end, the most ambitious and talented students will make it to the top, whether they studied business, engineering, economics, or something unrelated.</p>

<p>I heard somewhere that business is the most popular undergrad major in the United States. I have to ask Why? Outside a small core of schools, a business degree is not really that marketable since everyone can study it. Sure, top students from even mediocre schools will get good jobs. But for the vast majority of students who land somewhere in the middle, above or below, there were better options. Like receiving a more academic education (rather than pre-professional). But still, every year, more and more students want to major in "business".</p>

<p>Is a business degree undergrad really helpful? If it was, why hasn't Harvard, Stanford, and other elite schools established undergrad programs? Surely they have the resources to do so, if they wanted to. </p>

<p>Engineers and liberal arts majors at top overall schools have equal success in business, if not more. In my opinion, that is because not everyone can do it, unlike a business major(if you're not heavy quant). Completing an engineering curriculum shows much more about your ability than completing a business major at a school like VTech or Penn State or places that have ridiculously huge ug business schools. Many students at these schools who study business simply study it for the dough. And at many schools, business majors do a lot less work. They don't want to learn, they don't want an education, they just want $$$. They want that rubber stamp that will allow them to go out into the business. I don't like this philosophy one bit. Without working hard, you cannot be successful(working at daddy's company doesn't make u successful).They don't seem to understand that a majority of business majors don't land the top jobs. If you look at the executives at Fortune 500 companies, you'll see that most of them have a strong background in either engineering or in the liberal arts, later followed up with an MBA.</p>

<p>In conclusion, college is about growing and maturing and pursuing your interests. Our parents pay great sums of money hoping that we will become intellectual human beings four years later. Sadly, I don't see how this can be done with such a pre-professional degree such as business, unless you are interested in research(then do ECON). I understand you want to become a businessman. Not just any businessman. But if you're talented, ambitious, and hard-working, you will be succesful. A business degree won't get you that.</p>

2

<p>The usual personality of someone is business is that they are determined and from what I remember it had one of the highest continuation rates of any college undergrad major because people in business tend to be determined and focused a lot more than the average person.</p>

3

<p>Undergrad business is worth it if you're well recruited. </p>

<p>I go to UT Austin. The Econ majors (liberal arts) are looked at as being stupid because they can't get into our business school. The same thing happens at UCB I hear. So in turn, the Econ majors are usually recruited worse.</p>

<p>So now if you have the choice between being a business major at UT or a liberal arts major at Dartmouth, UChicago, etc, obviously go liberal arts. But if you're within a school that has both econ and a business school, it's usually better to go to the business school.</p>

4

<p>^ yea you're right, there are too many business majors or too many useless bschool programs etc. but they make em to boost the reputation of their school in general. as for the top bschools like haas, wharton, stern, ross,marshall, kelley, tepper it probaly is worth it ( in terms of investing in a business degree). yea we DEFINITELY need more enginneering students or jobs in which you bring more value to society overall :) no denying tat. but life aint as simple as tat, some people want to study business and actually learn more about the whole process/world of the business world as well as a decent job and others just want MONEY. i STRONGLY believe colllege is about learning and becoming intellectual beings hell tat is what college is about!! but nowadays the average person attending the average school cant just study whatever the hell they want or pursue a more liberal arts degree and get a job they can live on at a comfortable/normal level so in this day and age, we must try to balance it (assuming u r goin to a normal o nonprestigious name brand school) by pursuing a preprofessional/vocational degree and using up electives or wutever to learn about what they are interested in or even minor. cmon gatorade, a econ or enlish major at northwestern might not have a problem gettin a gud job but the "other" guy with a similar major who goes to whatever state college is gona encounter some problems. its not cut and dry, EVERYONE is different depending on their situation, college choices/limitations, dedication/aspirations etc.</p>

5

<p>Business is not like engineering in that you do not need to have a business education to go in to business. I think what it comes down to is whether you like it or not. Generally, business programs are better recruited (or else, they wouldn't exist), but for the same college/university, it is not to say that non-business majors don't have the opportunities.</p>

6

<p>"Generally, business programs are better recruited (or else, they wouldn't exist)"
Not necessarily. They exist because colleges know that enough students want to major in "business" that having one would help attract more students (excluding Wharton and other top schools). Vtech has 3500 business major students. Vtech has horrible recruiting for business, even without considering how large the class sizes are. But still, every year many kids go business at vtech, even though they would be much better off completing an engineering degree at tech(40% of engineers at tech dropout into business).</p>

7

<p>I think undergrad business majors are worthwhile. If you are a person who knows he/she wants to be an accountant, there are skills that a good accounting school will teach you. Besides, why wait until grad school (MBA) to learn those skills if you already know what you want to do now? Granted, you can still go into business w/out a business degree (plenty do), but the reason why so many companies recruit at the top undergraduate business schools is because there is a demand for them. </p>

<p>Here’s a student comment (from Business Week) by a 4th year Commerce student from UVa:</p>

<p>"At my internship this summer, I was often complimented on my command of accounting, writing, and speaking, often over the interns who had attended Ivy League schools. I would heartily recommend my program to someone interested in business because not only are hard skills like financial modeling and accounting stressed, but students learn in a positive, non-competitive environment, which encourages leadership in extracurricular activities and having a social life."</p>

8

<p>Obviously, certain skills are required for business, as in any profession. But compared to Law, medicine, or engineering, business skills do not require as many years of academic training to attain them. This is the reason why top business firms sometimes hire history majors to be analyists, but no engineering firm will hire a history major to engineering work. If you look at MBA programs, the primary focus is not actually academics, but networking (ie. its impossible to academically flunk out of MBA programs). Compared this to medical school which is years of hard academic work.</p>

9

<p>Here's something else to consider (also from Business Week):</p>

<p>MBA-like Respect</p>

<p>That fact underscores a curious transformation that has taken place in higher education in recent years. As the economy rebounded after the dot-com bust, students have been drawn to college business programs, and recruiters, seeking to ramp up their diminished ranks of middle managers, have followed. Under increased pressure from students and recruiters, business schools have revamped their offerings, putting more emphasis on specialized classes, real-world experience, and soft skills such as leadership. Once a refuge for students with poor grades and modest ambitions, many undergraduate business programs now get MBA-like respect. For many graduates, these programs are now so good that the MBA is almost beside the point, an academic credential for career switchers and those with corner office dreams but unnecessary for mere mortals.</p>

<p>The undergraduate business degree is now clearly on the path to respectability. With 54% of employers planning recruiting trips to undergraduate campuses in 2006 and undergraduate hiring expected to surge by 14.5% -- its third consecutive double-digit increase -- starting salaries for grads in all majors are rising. But business majors have fared better than any other discipline, with starting salaries up more than 49% since 1996, compared with 39% for engineering students and 29% for liberal arts grads, according to the National Association of Colleges & Employers. The typical business grad now earns $43,313, about $8,000 less than engineering students can expect. But for undergraduates at top schools, the average can easily exceed $50,000.</p>

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<p>Here's the thing....sure there are more engineers/scientists or whatever in other countries, but ultimately the people that hold the power are those who are able to sell the products that these engineers/scientists/whatever make.</p>

11

<p>Yeah, but w/o the engineers business people would have nothing to work with, I really hope the people that have the aptitude and interest to do things in the medical, engineering, and other non business fields dont switch over to business for the money. I am doing business because my strengths and interests have always remained best applicable to the business world, but business depends completely on other fields and without them business with be non existent.</p>

12

<p>Everybody needs everybody.</p>

<p>While engineers, CS, and others may build the systems and ideas, for the most part most aren't the ones getting approval or money to build them.</p>

<p>Great ideas and teams are useless if theirs no money, no leaders , no projects, and no sales to back a project.</p>

<p>But while Business people may network, gather teams and leaders, sell, and win contracts to build systems or items or projects, for the most part they aren't the ones designing or building them.</p>

<p>Money is nice but without people who can actually build what you claim, reputation would be your company is useless.</p>

<p>Everybody needs everybody else. Simple as that.</p>

13

<p>It depends on where you go and what you do. Its definitely worth it if you go to </p>

<p>Upenn(Wharton)
NYU(stern)
Umich (ross)
UVA (McIntire)
UT-AUstin (mccombs)
MIT(Sloan)
Georgetwon
WashU in St. Louis
Carnegie mellon tepper</p>

<p>and some others too, but there is also some great econ programs to consider.</p>

14

<p>I agree with Pre-medwannabe. The following is a report on the hiring from WashU's student life on May 16, 2006.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.studlife.com/media/storage/paper337/news/2006/05/16/News/Job-Prospects.Are.Up.For.Class.Of.06-1997305.shtml?norewrite200605192158&sourcedomain=www.studlife.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.studlife.com/media/storage/paper337/news/2006/05/16/News/Job-Prospects.Are.Up.For.Class.Of.06-1997305.shtml?norewrite200605192158&sourcedomain=www.studlife.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"More than half of the University's Olin School of Business 2006 graduates have reported job offers, up 30 percent from the same time last year. Jim Beirne, associate dean and director of the Weston Career Center at Olin, expects this number to grow to 80 percent by graduation.</p>

<p>The $52,000 median starting salary for Olin graduates is also up 11 percent from last year, a "huge" increase according to Beirne.</p>

<p>The number of recruiters at Olin is also higher, up 19 percent from last year. The largest ones this year include Deloitte & Touche, JP Morgan and Bank of America Securities. Motorola and General Mills are two firms new to the University also seeking undergraduates."</p>

<p>I would say $52,000 starting salary for a 22 year old is very good. I am sure that the graduates from Wharton and Stern will do better than that, numberwise.</p>

15

<p>What if your going to a good but not top State U? Consider that the Bschool there is still better than the liberal arts school, then would you consider business or liberal arts (ie govt or economics) ?</p>

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<p>Anyone? anyone?</p>

17

<p>I'm in business because it has no ceiling....it allows you to move where ever you want to.... also the relationships between ppl i find fascinating and really thats y i want to go into business.....it is important to note that there is def a negative connotation w/ a businesss degree...whenever i tell someone im goin into business i feel as if i need to validate it more by saying that i mite be minoring in psychology or sociiology or w/ever.......... </p>

<p>ive been shaddowing at this one electronic manufacturing company for about two weeks now...and ive seen ppl with all sorts of backgrounds accomplish different things... and really it doesnt seem as if what you study in school that matters....from what ive seen its merely the fact that you graduated from a college that matters...it seems as if ppl overblow the majors we're all getting into....i personally believe taht college should be a chance to broaden your horizons intellectually and not just as a vocational school..... im going into business b/c i find it extremely stimulating and love the competitiveness....in reallity...business almost seems as if im studying biology in a different more humanly practical world</p>

18

<p>Why does everyone start off saying that business is a worthless degree and you can get a job in business with any major and then just focus on engineering and science. If you are good enough in math to do engineering or science than that might be better but I don't see why if you want a job in business you would be better off studying something like literature or history. Why would a company rather hire someone who knows nothing about business and start training them on the job when they could have someone who has at least taken one or two classes in whatever they're going to be doing be it marketing, organizational behavior, etc.?</p>

19

<p>this may not apply to the upper-tier business programs, but at my current school (transferring out finaid pending), the business majors are there because they generally have no idea what they want to do. if they're "undecided", the majority go into business b/c they want to run a small business of some sort in the future.</p>

<p>generally though, if it's not an upper-tier school you may be better off w/ a liberal arts major and getting an mba unless you have a job of some sort already lined up.</p>

20

<p>well if its a normal school wouldnt it be better off to major in business rather than some liberal arts major? in terms of job prospects its be less riskier to major in business than history if you go to a non-top 50 school. i mean goin to a top school it would make sense to major in the liberal arts or business because top companies recruit there and trust the students to be high caliber students regardless of major but at a "normal" school the companies wouldnt regard those students on the same level as the kids at the top school so students at the normalschool would have to major in something more practical or if majoring in the liberal arts, they would have to have a good academic and extracurricular background. tats what i tink.</p>