<p>You don’t need to be a math genius to work in any of those fields, and I’m also going to argue that you don’t need to be very naturally gifted, either. Most of success in the business world isn’t necessarily predicated on natural gifts but on perseverance, hard work, networking and a little luck.</p>
<p>I would say quantitative political science would probably require the most “innate ability” simply because a lot of that is going to be developing new theory in the area and doing hardcore research, and you need to be able to think abstractly and theoretically about math and stats. Finance maybe the second, if you are doing some modeling there too. It depends on what you do; some people do research developing new financial models or on markets. But I would be willing to bet money that the majority of people successful in finance, accounting, business law and investment banking aren’t more than above-average in quant - and even then, they’re above average because they like math and they practiced it.</p>
<p>I think a math major is a great major for a business-oriented student but I think econ-math could be better. And it depends, too. If you want to be an accoutant, an accounting major may be better.</p>
<p>*"Here’s something to consider: Many people who are turned off by math in school get turned on to math later. Either because they see how it is used out in the real world, and that matters to them, and gives them the motivation they need to learn more, or because higher-level math deals with problems that are very different from Algebra I or Pre-Calc. It is lots of very careful logic layered step by step into complex, beautiful patterns; it isn’t so much plugging numbers into formulas and performing calculations. "
*</p>
<p>This is SO true. I liked math in high school but I really started to LOVE math my senior year of HS when I had a calculus teacher that was an engineer in a former life; he taught practical calculus (AP, but in it’s applications. As in, this is what calculus is used for). And then I loved it some more in college when I got into statistics. It makes me sad because I wish more math teachers would teach you applied math/practical math rather than just giving kids problems with no context. If they had the context, maybe they would care more.</p>