Hi! I am from India. I have had several people tell me to not opt for a business major. Could someone tell me what is wrong with opting for a business major? Though my future job preference is largely undecided, I am considering becoming an investment banker or a financial analyst. Can someone please tell me which major would be more relevant to my preferred career options?
P.s. I would most likely go for Business while concentrating in Finance. If there are any better suited concentrations, please let me know.
In a school which offers both business and economics majors, generaly, if you are in the business school, you have a higher priority in taking classes in the business school than an econ major. Business school allows you to take more classes within the major, i.e., finance, which means more depth than otherwise an econ major would be able to take. Generally, in a big name university, business school is more difficult to get into than economics.
Investment banking firms do hire undergraduate business graduates as well as economics with finance or math. The big name investment banking firms (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc.) generally hire from targeted big name top schools. They take the “creme of the crop” and the working hours are very long.
It is important to understand that economics and finance are very different majors. Economics is a liberal arts course of study and gets very theoretical at the upper levels. In contrast if you go to an undergraduate business school you will take a business core with introductory classes in subjects such as accounting, finance, IT, marketing etc. and then you will major in one of those disciplines. I’m not saying that one path is better than the other, but they are different. I would take the time to look at the coursework (can be found online) for both a finance and an economics major at colleges you are considering and see if one path is preferable to you.