Need help picking minor for Econ degree...

College Majors Business Major
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<p>I am a transfer student starting this fall as a second-semester junior (in case it's relevant, I'm going to a top 25 public university). I'm an Econ major, and I've been having a tough time deciding on a minor.</p>

<p>My two main alternatives are Finance and Accounting. I've taken the basics in each (financial + managerial acct, intro corporate finance), and I liked both subjects. I enjoy analyzing financial statements and working with financial ratios, and I enjoyed my stats class and working with data to find trends and patterns. Maybe this'll sound silly, but I remember my financial acct textbook had a case study that talked about how J. Crew used financial data to figure out which product lines were most profitable overall, in particular stores, and so forth. I would love to do that - this is what's selling, this is who's buying, so our company should make more of ABC and less of DEF, etc. Basically, I want to dive into the data, make sense of it, and make recommendations based on all that.</p>

<p>So what is this type of work properly considered? And should I go accounting or finance for it? Can I still make decent/good money in this type of work as opposed to IB/HF?</p>

<p>One side note: in addition to these minors, my new school also offers a minor in agribusiness management, which has piqued my interest. The minor courses include ag commodity markets, pricing, ag marketing, and so forth. I'm thinking I could maybe work for the US govt or a state govt, or perhaps a large ag company. Anyone have any thoughts on this alternative? Would it be worth giving up the other minor, or should I take an extra semester to get this one too?</p>

<p>Thanks!!! :)</p>

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<p>Bump? I could really use y’all’s help.</p>

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<p>Finance, IT or accounting are all solid choices for a minor. You just have to decide which one interests you the most.</p>

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<p>From the sounds of it you want to a job doing data mining (Business data analyst, Data Model Analyst, etc), to look for patterns in large batches of data, businesses can learn more about their customers and develop more effective marketing strategies as well as increase sales and decrease costs. In regards to a minor, you are better off focusing on computer science, applied statistics, information systems, and etc. You will typically use different softwares for analyzing the data and having a background would be quite beneficial.</p>

<p>Salary-wise, it’s really hard to compare, but for the most part, you will make about the same. It really differs though at the upper-end where investment banking will pull drastically ahead.</p>

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<p>A couple of things going on here. </p>

<p>What you are referring to is Analytics. A lot of marketing firms, and advertising agencies (think GroupM) have departments designated to helping clients make decisions on what to sell, what to buy, and how to maximize exposure, profitability.</p>

<p>A strong minor in my opinion for economics is

  • Comp Sci (Most people I know who work in Finance wish they knew how to code)
  • Finance ( default)
  • Statistics (based on what you want to do)</p>

<p>Salary in analytics is more in line with corporate finance. Think 55-65k starting at a big city.</p>