<p>How come people only talk about finance/MIS/acc. as their major of their choice? Is marketing THAT underrated, or is it people these days only care for the money and want a sound, stable job? I wanted to pursue a marketing major and go international with my fluent Spanish. However, after lurking at countless threads I am starting to get discouraged and started looking up for some other majors that are similar to marketing and can't find any =/</p>
<p>I’ve been wondering the same thing, actually.</p>
<p>At first I was interested in Marketing, but there’s so much negative talk about it that I can’t just shrug it off as rumors anymore.</p>
<p>It seems the favorite is Finance/Economics.</p>
<p>Guys don’t worry that much. You can major in whatever you want, for in the nearest future, a lot of people are going to retire, and there is going to be a shortage of professionals in each field.</p>
<p>Marketing teaches no real skill. You either have the imagination and thought process to do Marketing or you don’t. I can tell you one thing, I’ve worked with marketing execs and marketing researchers and have yet to find one who majored in marketing.</p>
<p>For some reason the labor market doesn’t value marketing degrees the way it does accounting, finance, MIS, or economics degrees, which is reflected in the salaries of those holding marketing degrees (google search: bachelors payscale marketing). </p>
<p>I think it’s partly a supply and demand issue and it reflects the lack of specialized technical skills that marketing programs teach students. Like the liberal arts, marketing teaches students “soft” skills, which are necessary, but don’t command nearly the same salary or respect as hard skills do. I think of marketing the same way I do psychology, an important and interesting subject, and one that you should take a couple of classes in (soft skills ARE very important of course), but a poor choice for one’s major.</p>
<p>Most of the people who work in high level marketing (with Apple, Unilever,Pepsi, Proctor-Gamble) have their MBAs.</p>
<p>Some business majors like marketing, management, international business, consumer affairs etc. at the undergraduate level are not well regarded, especially at the less competitive schools. The reasons have been posted here on cc. I’d say any number of liberal art majors, couple it with an MBA, is far better. Even a BA in English, sociology, philosophy, history etc. at a decent school is better than a BBA in, say, management or marketing. That says, do what you are good at.</p>
<p>Major in what you want to sell. Like pharmaceutical sales reps should major in chemistry, chemical engineering, biology, biochemistry, biomedical engineering, etc. Instrumentation sales reps should major in chemistry, physics, EE, etc. just take a few marketing classes to get an idea, and have the rest of your skills in a quantitative and technical field so you have a backup for when the market’s down.</p>
<p>let’s face it, we live in a math/science world, an objective fact-based world. Anything theory-based is written off as a “joke major”</p>
<p>Very few colleges offer marketing as a major. One of the best places I know that offers something marketing-related is at Northwestern. They have a special certification, and of course, there’s Northwestern’s MBA program which is well known in marketing circles.</p>
<p>Truth is, you could major in many different areas and eventually end up your career in marketing, depending on your area of interest within marketing. There’s art/design (Art major or Graphic Design) or copywriting (humanities/journalism/writing). Then you could be interested in the business-side of marketing, which is economics/finance. Or you could focus on analytical skills by learning social sciences, like psychology or anthropology.</p>
<p>ETA: disregard the above comment. There are plenty of companies that need analytical skills, and you could get that doing research in psychology or some other social sciences. Be sure your thesis is not just theory-based.</p>
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<p>Hm, come back in 10 years and tell me something about the real world. You’d be surprise how many real Finance VPs are liberal art graduates.</p>
<p>^Dumb. I’ve never met ONE and I interned at a big 4 where we met with these execs all the time. </p>
<p>And ALL those guys will have an MBA focused in finance. They wouldn’t have achieved that position if not for the MBA.</p>
<p>Plscatamacchia, chill out dude. Do you always get worked up about insignificant things in real life?</p>
<p>pls, chill out. In a couple of posts above I said “any number of liberal art majors, couple it with an MBA, is far better”. So you validated my point. Some bios…</p>
<p>[GE:</a> Keith Sherin, Vice Chairman, CFO, Biography](<a href=“http://www.ge.com/company/leadership/bios_exec/keith_sherin.html]GE:”>http://www.ge.com/company/leadership/bios_exec/keith_sherin.html)
[Chief</a> Financial Officer BIO](<a href=“http://www.dol.gov/ocfo/bio.html]Chief”>http://www.dol.gov/ocfo/bio.html)
[Florida’s</a> Chief Financial Officer](<a href=“http://www.myfloridacfo.com/sitepages/agency/cfo.aspx]Florida’s”>Meet the CFO for the State of Florida | MyFloridaCFO)
[Richard</a> Nanula: Biography from Answers.com](<a href=“Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions”>Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions)</p>