<p>So a lot of people have been telling me that I shouldn't go into business for undergrad (I'm looking to major in something like management/economics). </p>
<p>They say that the choices are too broad in terms of possible jobs after graduating. I could be managing a major company after 4 years of college or I could be an associate manager at Denny's.</p>
<p>They say it's better for me to get a degree in something that requires actual skill. Like not people skills used in business, but technical skill or something like that.</p>
<p>Should I go for something non-business related and then get my MBA.</p>
<p>Like if I went to Law School, I could end then get my MBA and create my own Law firm. </p>
<p>Business has many functional areas each with it’s own set of specialties. </p>
<p>Operations Management
Statistics (Also Mathematics)
Actuary Science
Marketing
Finance
Accounting
Human Resource Administration
Risk Management and Insurance
Real Estate
Management Information Science (Also an Computer/Math Program)
Strategic Management
International Business Administration
Economics (Also a liberal Arts Program)
etc.</p>
<p>Each requires specific skill sets. I suggest you contact several schools and explore career options in each of the majors they offer. If you get a general business degree you are still more qualified in certain skills than someone with some other degree.</p>
<p>Most business is math intensive: Algebra, Statistics, and in some fields Trigonometry and Calculus. Business is also Logic based.</p>
<p>All 4 year degrees have broad employment options. With and engineering degree your prospects are similar. It has more to do with you job search after school. </p>
<p>What ever you choose take 1 Accounting class, and 1 economics class. These are the basics that most entrepreneurs wish they had. You may also want to take a business law course. Yes, Business students study some law (Contracts, Tort (product liability), international trade law, securities, etc.)</p>
<p>My point is, who ever you spoke to knows absolutely nothing about business. You should contact your prospective schools and ask the admissions staff or see if you can corner a Jr. or Sr. year student.</p>
<p>The people you are talking to sound like idiots.</p>
<p>First of all, the career choices are not “too broad” at all. They are much more broad for a liberal art or something where you aren’t even going to use your area of study in your career. This is a valid thing to say about someone who majors in general management or international business, but aside from that, every other major in business will be much more specialized than average and give you above average job prospects for your university. If they don’t know that, they just don’t know what an undergraduate business degree is about.</p>
<p>Your undergraduate major does not matter when applying for an MBA program.</p>
<p>You do not need an MBA to start your own business, either.</p>
<p>Alright, so I guess I didn’t explain myself clear enough.</p>
<p>Say for example I go to undergrate majoring in pharmacy. I don’t even know what you learn in that major, but that’s besides the point…the point is that whatever I learn in that major I won’t be able to learn anywhere else. I can’t read a book a learn it…I can’t go online and learn it…I have to go to school for it.</p>
<p>Business however is a bigger range. Okay I major in business…I could end up as a CEO of a major company or a salesmen at Kohls…it’s still business.</p>
<p>But if I major in pharmacy that industry will be most likely the one I be working for when I graduate. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I WANT to major in business…but my brother who get to grad school at Columbia for business said I shouldn’t. He said most people who go to grad school for business don’t have a business major as an undergrad…most have it in some type of skill/technical field. </p>
<p>My parents say the same thing. </p>
<p>And yes it’s my life, but it’s my parents’ money…so…</p>
<p>Yes, most people in an MBA program did not get a BBA but that should be obvious, especially to someone who can get into Columbia, because the vast majority of people coming out of undergrad do not have BBAs. If you look at it from the perspective of what percentage of BBAs get MBAs, then they may very well be the best represented in top MBA programs compared to how relatively few of them there are.</p>
<p>An MBA isn’t always the “next step” after a BBA either, it’s simply something you go back to get if you are trying to break into a new business field (consulting firms expect you to get one, for example) or if you majored in something technical and want to transition into business like your brother’s classmates.</p>
<p>Besides, even something like finance can be a technical field if you want it to be. A shell recruiter I talked to told me to make sure I at least take some finance classes because it’s one of those things that you’re very unlikely to learn more than your employer wants you to on your own (like pharmacy), which is exactly what you wanted from your degree, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Also, if you’re going to a decent university, you will not work at Kohl’s. Similarly, no matter where you go, you will not be a CEO for a long time unless you founded a company. It seems like you need to do a lot more research into business majors, because jobs that most people I know are aiming for are entry-level positions in investment banks and consulting firms, big 4 accounting firms, and fortune 500 companies, and at a decent business program, the majority do get jobs in places like these.</p>
<p>The majority also finds that there is no reason to leave a well-paying job that they like to get an MBA (For example, only 35% of Wharton undergrads seek an MBA) that would often simply allow them to do work that they might not like as much, though certain fields and certain companies expect MBAs, which is the main reason for a BBA to go back and get one.</p>
<p>I agree with your brother’s advice on doing a more technical degree then doing MBA for a graduate degree. </p>
<p>If you get a BBA, you are pretty much pigeonholed in to business, which may not be a bad thing if you really like it. But the top jobs (IB and consulting, maybe accounting) BBAs gun for also hire other more technical degrees. Simply put, you don’t need a BBA to get a job in business. However, you do need an engineering degree if you want to be an engineer. (The examples of law and pharm are bad, since those are graduate degrees).</p>
<p>Top MBA schools value diversity and generally frown upon BBA, unless you worked at top finance jobs (PE/VC/HF/IB) at reputable companies or top consulting firms (McKinsey/BCG/Bain). The reason those work experience helps is because graduates with those backgrounds are highly prized and can generally land a high paying job, thus boost the school’s rankings. </p>
<p>Otherwise, top MBA schools want diversity. They’ll teach you the business skills that you need, but they want you to bring something else to the table. For industry jobs, it’s highly beneficial to have background in the respective industry. For example, if you want to do healthcare management but don’t understand the complexities involved in all the healthcare regulations, you are not going to be marketable. </p>
<p>Like your brother, I’m also a non-BBA degree holder going to top 10 MBA school.</p>
<p>I would like to point out that more technical fields are the ones associated with getting pigeonholed into. For example, business majors who do MIS or double in something like computer science often end up programming for the rest of their life if they aren’t careful, whereas I’ve never heard anyone say pigeonholing in reference to something like finance until that post. Besides, if you actually want to work in business, you might as well start in it, too. By the way, you do need a degree in accounting to be a CPA.</p>
<p>To an extend, everyone is pigeonholed into the industry s/he chooses as the first job. IMO, if you majored in business for UG, it’s hard to get out of the business field. For example, while trading, consulting, and banking jobs will recruit from engineering school, engineering companies do not recruit finance majors to do engineering work. Maybe I’m just speaking from an engineering perspective. In essence, it seems there are more exit options for technical majors. You can do technical things, but also non-technical things. Whereas, it doesn’t work the other way around.
openedskittles, can you give some concrete examples of BBA with finance concentration working in another industry that an technical major would not be able to do as well?</p>
<p>@collegebound_guy:
Management position in general are not available to BBA holders. However, in the discussion, I was referring to MBAs. MBAs at elite schools are often recruited for director level positions, since MBAs have work experience and understands the inner workings of organizational structures. Even at non-elite schools, people often et an MBA to move up the corporate ladder within the same company.</p>
<p>Many small and medium sized businesses will take on managers without a masters degree. They look for experience or may hire from within.</p>
<p>There are many management trainee jobs for BBA’s right after graduation. They are generally in sales and retail type positions but they can happen anywhere.</p>
<p>A degree in management is about Business Management not about leadership so without experience or on the job training there are no Management positions for BBA’s right out of school unless they start their own business.</p>
<p>What I meant about a finance major not getting pigeonholed is that you can work for pretty much any company and move into just about any corporate job that doesn’t require a CPA, whereas someone in computer science will likely stick with programming their entire life.</p>
<p>I know an engineer can work in finance, but if they choose to do so, they are in the exact same boat as a finance major after a few years and there’s no real advantage to having done engineering. If you want to work in the business world, there’s no reason to beat around the bush doing an engineering degree first, so you might as well get a leg up on what you’re really interested in. Like I said, one of the biggest reasons people go back for MBA’s is that they are trying to transition from their technical job into a corporate job, but for a BBA, the only real reason to go back is if they’re trying to do something like consulting where you’re expected to go back for an MBA.</p>
<p>For many of the larger companies, if you want a director level or higher position, you would need an MBA.</p>
<p>You pointed to the advantage I was talking about in getting a technical degree. If you have a technical degree, you can work in a business capacity, but you will not be able to do that vice versa. </p>
<p>Also, certain industries, like Big Oil, will only hire MBAs with engineering background. In general, I think engineering is a more marketable degree that will give you the most flexibility.</p>
<p>you may have your undergraduate in engineering followed by a graduate level business degree. but you don’t see a lot, if not at all, in reverse. if you know you will go to graduate school, i would say go for engineering or any science major in your undergrad. it will open up more doors for your future.</p>
<p>Something like big oil will hire an engineer with an MBA to manage other engineers, but only because the engineer has experience doing that work, which you wouldn’t have if you went straight into finance. Of course, if your main interest is finance and you majored in finance, you would likely be going back for an MBA because you’re interested in private equity or something, and I doubt many BBAs are going to an MBA program thinking “Now I can manage engineering projects.”</p>
<p>Besides, big oil hires hundreds of students right out of undergraduate business programs every year to work in their finance, accounting, marketing and other departments. If you want to do engineering and manage engineers, then obviously an engineering degree will be useful, but if you want to start in business, you’re really not going to miss many opportunities and would probably be happier just getting a BBA.</p>