<p>Background info: I am very interested in the technology industry and programming. I am currently a cs major at my community college.</p>
<p>I would like to start my own website tech company one day (not sure if I want to sell a service or provide a free service and make money through advertisement on the site). but I don't know if I'm taking the right path. My initial plan was to get a degree in cs and recruit some programmers to help me start my company. </p>
<p>Should I keep staying on that route or should I get a degree in business so that i can learn how to start and manage a business and then recruit programmers to do all that stuff for me?</p>
<p>I have been debating back and forth and I can't come up with a conclusion.
People like mark zuckerberg, the creator of twitter, creator of youtube, etc were all programmers and started their website company from scratch. But I have also read articles that say although you do not need a business degree to start one, it does help a lot. And to be CEO of my theoretical company, I would need good business skills and i don't know if i could gain those skills through a cs major but i could be wrong.</p>
<p>CS and Business combined is a diabolical (in the good sense) combination.
CS is already one of the most high ranked and in demand jobs and with a Business degree, such as an MBA, would show future employees your potential.
People in CS tend to get their business degree after their CS as to get promoted in a current job.
But by starring early it’s showing commitment that you’re in this for the long run.</p>
<p>Make sure that you get a few years DOING CS before getting your MBA. You cannot lead a team of software developers unless you have DEVELOPED software before…or else your teams would not respect you.</p>
<p>No need to major in business or get an MBA to move into a managerial role in a computer software organization after being an individual contributor.</p>
<p>Don’t bother double majoring. I recommend the CS major, take a couple basic business classes, work in the CS field for a little while, then get an MBA.</p>
<p>2 say it’s a good idea.
1 says i should go for the cs major first and then later go for the business degree.
2 say to skip business and stick with cs
hmm… this is a tough one.</p>
<p>But before i get ahead of myself, is it even possible to double major in cs and business? Has any one here done it or know someone who has? I heard it is difficult because classes don’t overlap. so idk…</p>
<p>Depending on the college/university, there are places that offer CS + Business double degrees, and I have heard that it would usually be 5 years, and there would obviously be more coursework. Therefore you would have to work harder to retain a high GPA as well.</p>
<p>Double majoring in business would be a waste of your time and wouldn’t likely help you in any way. It really wouldn’t help you substantially if you decide to start your own business, and it wouldn’t be much help in landing a managerial role at a software company either. It would really just be a waste of time and money. An MBA down the road could be helpful, but that should be a bridge you cross down the road - decide 3 or 4 years after you graduate if you even need it.</p>
<p>I don’t want to become manager of a company that i am working for.
I want to make my own company or in other words i want to be an entrepreneur.
The reason I want to have a business degree is because I want to have a solid foundation of business so that I can be ready if i ever become ceo of my company. I also want to be able to create my own business model so that i can pitch my company idea to possible investors. </p>
<p>Let’s say i got my bachelor’s in CS and then i went back to school the next year to go for an MBA, would i need to get a bachelor’s in business before i can get the masters? Or would i be going strait for the MBA?</p>
<p>MBA degree programs do not have any specific undergraduate course requirements; they assume that students come from any possible undergraduate and work experience background.</p>
<p>HeartyBowl. Mind to post my response to your PM here as well? I don’t have the writing with me now. I just noticed your post here. It will benefit other people as well :)</p>
<p>Note that no specific undergraduate major is required, although “your choice of coursework, the rigor of your undergraduate major, the competitiveness of your academic institutions, and your grade point average (GPA)” are considered in admissions. The only specific course requirement is “a college-level mathematics or statistics course”. Note that “most of our students have two or more years of full-time professional work experience following the completion of their undergraduate degree.”</p>
<p>jwxie sent me a private message and this is what he said:</p>
<p>I think you should definitely stick with CS. Business leadership is a nature. If other people see you as a leader, business degree is useless IMHO.</p>
<p>When you are taking your liberal art courses in college, you should be taking your economy 101 class, regardless whether you want to become an entrepuer or not.
The goal is to understand how economy works as a whole. It will tell you how suppy and demand works. How we calculate GDP, and basic tools that you need to understand as a grown-up citizen.</p>
<p>The second critical prereq is definitely a good idea that you can sell. I just read this last night in my mailbox. A political science major and a computer science major from Columbia University failed in a startup competition, but as they were reflecting, they thought teaching people how to code online. On the day the site was launched, I think over 200k people visited it and signed up. This year is now known as “Code Year”. It was backed up by many investors.</p>
<p>Now whether the business will continue to last for another ten year or not, that’s really a business stragery. You need a team of keen business writers, an accountant, and smart engineers to turn this site into a profit domain. How do we keep people interested in our product? What kind of activity can we perform with our partners? What can we offer to other firms?</p>
<p>These answers you do not get from your business degree. You get them from interacting with people. If you want to be the next Facebook cofounder, you just need an idea that works for the moment, and then expand that idea after.</p>
<p>Once you have a goal that is reachable and profitable, managment is pretty much an experience that you will gain overtime. However, like I said, it might be a good idea to leave those decisions to experienced people out there once you’ve established the root for your idea.</p>
<p>Ok so then that’s cool that you don’t need an undergrad degree to get an MBA. This means that i can concentrate on getting a cs degree and then later get an MBA if i want.</p>
<p>But i have a question, will the topics and concepts that are taught in an MBA be confusing to someone coming from a cs major? Because a cs major would not be taking some of the foundational and core classes that a business undergrad would take, so my understanding is that a cs major would enter the MBA program a bit confused…</p>
<p>MBA programs assume very little about your previous course work, other than that you presumably had good enough study habits to successfully complete a bachelor’s degree (note that law schools are similar). That is why they do not have specific major requirements and very little in the way of specific course requirements.</p>
<p>But yes, taking an introductory economics course is a good idea for students in any major (that is why those courses are so popular).</p>