NYT Education Life: "Skating Through B-School"

Parents Forum
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<p>^^^ Well, don’t be offended, barrons; I was just quoting a comment from someone who said he taught at U Chicago business school.
I think there is some content and rigor in business studies (some fields more than others), but as you pointed out, it depends on the particular school. Clearly your friends did well coming out of business school; that’s not the case for many others, as these quotes from the NYT series illustrate:
“When Josipa Roksa and I surveyed the Academically Adrift cohort last spring, a year after their graduation, we found that while business majors indeed continued to have slightly better initial job prospects than other graduates, large numbers of them were struggling to make successful transitions. When considering business majors a year out of college who were no longer enrolled in classes, we found 9 percent unemployed, 28 percent without full-time employment and a staggering 45 percent living back at home with their parents or other relatives.”
[Diluted</a> Degrees - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com](]<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/17/why-look-down-on-a-business-degree/diluted-degrees]Diluted”>Diluted Degrees - NYTimes.com)</p>

<p>“What’s ironic about this glut of business majors is this: The students, often egged on by their parents, are pursuing their vocational degree because they assume that it’s the ticket to a six-figure income. The evidence, however, suggests otherwise.
When PayScale conducted its latest annual survey of starting and mid-career salaries for college grads in dozens of college majors, business came in as the 60th best-paying college degree. It fared worse than such supposedly impractical degrees as history, political science and philosophy.” [url=]<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/17/why-look-down-on-a-business-degree/but-can-they-write[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/17/why-look-down-on-a-business-degree/but-can-they-write&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Personally, I think one of the main outcomes of business school for many students is to socialize them in certain types of self-presentation and social interaction skills. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that as those types of skills are an important part of “doing business”, just as there’s nothing wrong with wanting readily employable skills coming out of college, or wanting to earn a good income. I assume that attracts certain types of people more than others.</p>

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<p>Don’t be disingenuous–we all quote somebody we agree with to advance our argument/opinion so at least have the balls to stand behind what you think. </p>

<p>I agree that there are too many business majors from inferior colleges–just as there are too many inferior English and history majors from the same schools. But as you move up the academic ladder to the better state flagships and privates you get a far different picture. At these schools business is often harder to get into than the liberal arts as a freshman or you apply after compiling an above average GPA in basic liberal arts classes at the school–often over a 3.25-3.50+ GPA for two years. These articles tend to lump everyone together while focusing on the second and third rate schools. They prove nothing other than there are lots of crummy colleges out there.</p>

<p>And the NY times writer is just a dumbass. “Business” is not a common business major. Most people major in finance and they had MUCH HIGHER average pay mid career numbers just below engineering.
This is what happens when you have some English major trying to get cute writing about something they know little about.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp[/url]”>http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>^ There’s nothing disingenuous about it, so don’t get your panties in a knot.</p>

<p>What I think about the whole matter draws more distinctions than you give me credit for…I think we both would agree that there are a lot of mediocre business programs and business students out there; there also are some very top notch business programs and business students. I think we would also agree that there are a lot of mediocre history, political science, IR and other liberal arts programs and students out there.</p>

<p>In my experience, I’ve also come across a good number of people with a lot of business smarts who were probably among the most narrow-mined people I’ve ever met, just as I’ve come across a good number of people with liberal arts smarts, who had no practical sense or social skills to do anything even remotely related to business. While I place a lot stock on the value on a solid liberal arts background for business as well as nonbusiness careers, I’m well aware that many of the people who sunk this economy came from just such an educational background. Ultimately, it comes down to the particular student, whether he or she is a business major or a liberal arts major. </p>

<p>At the same time, I’m also quite aware of the standards that a good business program involves—I have a niece in the honors program at Kelley, who has lined up a $90K job even before graduating, and other family members from the accounting programs at Illinois, one of whom runs his own manufacturing business and another working for one of the top national accounting firms. Still other family members with strong liberal arts backgrounds are quite successful in real estate, insurance, and international business.</p>

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<p>it still sounds like “Yale or Jail” (with Yale standing in for any other top 50 institution of higher learning) is just as applicable for business students as it might be for liberal arts students. that’s not a straw man, xiggi, it’s my observation based on all the colloquy since around post #5.</p>

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<p>Barrons, I’m trying to verify that. Do you have a cite?</p>

<p>I’m willing to believe that top students at top business programs often major in finance, and further that studying finance is demanding. But top students make up only a tiny proportion of the students getting bachelors degrees in business. About one in five bachelor’s degrees nationwide is a business degree; most students getting those degrees are not at top schools. Instead, they’re at some directional state school, more likely to be studying beer and football than finance.</p>

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<p>Re #20</p>

<p>epiphany, as you may remember, I was a business major at Georgia Tech.</p>

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<p>There was a time when English departments taught their students how to write and more importantly, how to write well. I think that time has long since passed, since mainstream English scholarship is now nothing but gender this, gender that; race this, race that; deconstruct this, deconstruct that. Crisp, clean, and clear writing has been replaced by convolutions and contortions that cannot even be called writing.</p>

<p>Consider the following two letters. The first was written by a group of UChicago faculty opposing the creation of the Milton Friedman Institute at UChicago. The second was a reply from John Cochrane, a professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business at UChicago.</p>

<p>[Letter</a> signed by thirteen English and other humanities professors](<a href=“http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/papers/friedman_letter.htm]Letter”>http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/papers/friedman_letter.htm)
[Reply</a> written by Finance professor (Physics undergrad)](<a href=“http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/papers/friedman_letter_comments.htm]Reply”>http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/papers/friedman_letter_comments.htm)</p>

<p>Maybe I’m biased, but Cochrane’s letter demolished the group letter written by professors who are partially in the business (pun intended) of educating undergrads how to write and how to think critically. What’s most hilarious is that Cochrane schools them on WRITING.</p>

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<p>fabrizio, yes, you’re biased. The humanities professors wrote a clear letter explaining why they opposed the proposal for the right-wing Milton Friedman Institute. The physics professor responded with a sneering, ad hominem attack.</p>

<p>Hilariously, the response mentions “nice places… like Chile.” Indeed, Milton Friedman and the “Chicago boys” from the University of Chicago were big supporters of Augusto Pinochet, the charming Chilean dictator whose delightful political practices included dropping political opponents out of helicopters from high places into the ocean. “Disappear” didn’t used to be a transitive verb, until Pinochet and other US-backed South American dictators started disappearing inconvenient citizens. Chileans still remember Pinochet and his University of Chicago supporters.</p>

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<p>Fang–I could not find a general summary but at a variety of larger B Schools that breakout majors</p>

<p>TOSU–2719 total business
Finance was number 1 and accting #2 with a total of over 1700 out of the 2719</p>

<p>Wisconsin
Finance #1 and Accting #2 with 417 out of 906</p>

<p>Michigan</p>

<p>Finance #1 178 out of 370</p>

<p>UVa
Finance #1 226 out of 319
(Most UVa grads had double majors such as finance+accting) 71% had a finance major</p>

<p>Maryland Smith</p>

<p>Acting #2 with 21% Finance #1 with 28%.</p>

<p>In all cases marketing was next. General business admin or mgt was usually below 10%.</p>

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<p>Thanks barrons. TOSU is Ohio State? So looks like around half of the students at non-top schools are in finance or accounting, and the other half not. What kind of math courses are required for finance for mid-level schools?</p>

<p>As I understand it, the authors of the book actually tested business students and other students at a variety of institutions, and discovered that business students were not improving their reasoning and writing skills as much as other students, and in many cases were not improving their skills at all. In addition, business students reported that they studied less than other students (less than 11 hours a week!), and they did less well on the GMAT than other students, even though they should have been better prepared for a business aptitude test after three or four years supposedly studying business. So, whatever the courses business students are actually taking, the majority don’t seem to be learning much. </p>

<p>In the comments to the Times article, a number of business professors lament the poor skills and lazy study habits of their students.</p>

<p>So, there’s a stereotype that business students study less and learn less, on average. Apparently, that stereotype is correct.</p>

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<p>The great ones still do. Nothing has changed.</p>

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<p>Right. Fabrizio’s usual objectivity and “scholarship.” ;)</p>

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<p><em>cough, cough</em>
;)</p>

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<p>Remind me again why it’s okay to slam business majors with sterotype and sneering? Sheesh.</p>

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<p>Re: Post #26</p>

<p>fabrizio, quite apart from the differing political positions staked out by the two letters…
I agree that the humanities professors did not express their position in the most elegant prose, though I understood their points. Clearly, the old saying that a horse designed by a committee is likely to look like a camel applies to letter writing as well. Though Cochrane’s prose is clearer, the most salient feature of his letter is that it displays his stronger rhetorical skills. Rhetoric is meant to persuade; it’s not always used in the service of truth or objectivity. The challenge for the reader (or hearer, in the case of speech) is to see through the rhetoric. As you know, these skills—writing clearly, persuading, thinking critically, and detecting BS—are components of the liberal arts. For me, the question is how effectively are schools teaching these skills, whether to liberal arts majors or business majors. But perhaps, that’s a question for a different thread.</p>

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<p>No, that is wrong. Friedman staunchly opposed authoritarians like Pinochet. He offered his economic advice to all dictators; Pinochet was one of the few who listened.</p>

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<p>Do a CTRL+F, type “many,” and you’ll see that it appears as a subject five times in three bullet points. As Cochrane asked, who is “many”? If it refers to the signatories, why not say “we”? With 100 signatures, “we” is powerful. “Many,” however, is weak, regardless of how many people sign the letter. I don’t know who “many” refers to, nor do I know who “some” or “they” are. But I know who “we” is.</p>

<p>As for clarity, what is the “global south”? What is the “neoliberal global order”? Who put it in place? From reading the letter, could you answer my questions?</p>

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<p>And who are the “great ones,” epiphany? UChicago doesn’t count? I wouldn’t know; it’s not my area. But unless I am romanticizing the good ol’ days, English departments didn’t use to train their students to write drivel like the UChicago faculty letter I linked to.</p>

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<p>Fair point. As a finance professor, Cochrane’s livelihood relies on being able to persuade fellow finance professors that his results from answering unanswered questions are convincing, which is entirely consistent with your characterization of his “stronger rhetorical skills.”</p>

<p>Undergraduate business education may indeed need an overhaul or at least self-reflection. But I chafe at the notion that today’s English (or other humanities) majors are superior than “my brethren” at writing clearly. Rare is the professor who actually instills in his students the principles of conciseness and precision, and that is entirely the fault of where English has gone since the 1960s.</p>

<p>When mainstream English scholarship revolves purely around race and gender, is it any surprise that graduates of these programs are mainly taught how to write BS? That’s what their professors write!</p>

<p>Make no mistake: I am not against the liberal arts, nor am I against English as a subject worthy of higher study. I am merely expressing my skepticism that today’s English departments are where students should go if they want to learn how to write well.</p>

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<p>Oh who are we kidding? As if this is somehow a special problem for schools below the top 20. While no doubt the problems with business schools are magnified at some schools more than others, and in some majors more than others, every business school professor I know sees a fundamental issue across the industry (and one that is getting worse). We write about it, we talk about it, and many of us have taught at a number of different ‘levels’ of business school and our experiences are the same. </p>

<p>Are there brilliant minds going into business school and coming out of it? And can one get a real education even while majoring in business? Sure, of course! And let us not forget a ton of wonderful things about business school- from relatively decent jobs and salaries compared to other majors on the same campus, to networking opportunities, cool presentations, cool project work, direct entry level job training, and often a cohesive sense of community within the school itself. A great major if one is on a large campus but looking for a smaller community to which to belong. And a great major if one sees the point of university as job training and earning potential. I would never fault a student (or their family) for choosing this degree path. </p>

<p>But the sad truth of the matter is we are also continually dumbing down the curriculum, selling a spiffy looking product to our ‘customers’ and putting more emphasis on form over content year after year as we creep ever closer to what looks like vocational training. That is true whether you are talking about a top 5 school or a top 50. </p>

<p>And on average, business school students compared to students in many other majors are simply not the intellectuals on campus so they will do only what they have to do for the sake of the GPA they desire. On average, they do not read widely, they aren’t particularly interested in world events (even though they should be!), they are not particularly intellectually curious, they tend not to ask the “why?” questions or learn for the sake of learning. Now sure, every class has such kids, but they are unusual standouts. The majority of business school students are there for practical, instrumental reasons. They are there to network, build their resume, get the right GPA as needed, use the services of the career center, and learn some practical tools that will help them get an entry level job. </p>

<p>So it should come as no surprise that if the industry is selling them a product it is going to be more and more in the direction of the instrumental kind they are attracted to (from so many to choose from since every school now finds business majors to provide a great source of current and future revenue!), and the students themselves are going to come across as the ones that do only what they absolutely have to do for the sake of their resume. It is a bad combination. The result however is a loss of what I would consider a ‘university education’ in the truest sense. </p>

<p>I can count 100s of friends who are business school professors. Not one of them has a child planning to pursue, or pursuing, an undergrad in business. Then again professors are the ‘life of the mind’ sort so they probably want their kids to do something different with that first degree and their kids are probably not the kind to fit very well in an undergrad business program anyways.</p>

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<p>From straw man to non sequitur?</p>

<p>May I suggest to address your comments to the posters who participated in the “colloquy” since post 5, and perhaps quote them? My post was number 3.</p>

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<p>Fang–Most schools have similar math requirments–2 semesters of college level calculus and one of statistics.<br>
I don’t trust the conclusions of the NY Times article at all. They did not even know the difference between the various majors within business and chose the lowest paid one to report while the most popular areas–accounting, finance, and marketing had far higher average income numbers. I do not know the source of that test data but I have not heard of it. I do know that most good busienss programs for undergrads are very competitive to get into–either as a freshman or later within the university. For example at Minnesota those admitted to business had much higher test scores and grades than the liberal arts school. The idea that they suddenly get dumb or don’t continue to work hard does not meet the facts. Their interests might indeed be more focused than others as most will be reading the Wall Street Journal and The Economist over standard literature. </p>

<p>[Academic</a> Profile](<a href=“http://admissions.tc.umn.edu/academics/profile.html]Academic”>Academic Profile of Fall 2022 Admitted Freshman Applicants by College | Office of Admissions)</p>

<p>I also looked up an average directional school to check on their breakdown of business majors. The school is Northern Illinois University. At NIU the business majors breakdown as accting 213, Finance 140, Marketing 195, Mgt 105 and bus admin 153 out of a total 858. Rest were misc. So you get a slightly lower percentage in accting and finance than at the better schools. Problem with directional schools is they don’t have the easy to find data that the better schools seem to have. </p>

<p>Businessweek collects info on study habits for the Top 50 schools. Most exceed the average for the same campus.</p>

<p>[Online</a> Extra: Cracking the Books](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>

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<p>To see detailed placement and other data on many business programs click on a school and then alumni/careers. Many have good breakdowns by job, major, employers, etc</p>

<p>[Business</a> School Rankings and Profiles: EMBA, Executive Education, MBA, Part-time MBA, Distance MBA](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>

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<p>Looking at a few non-top schools with business majors, just randomly, I don’t see that. San Jose State, for example, requires “business math,” a finite math class that is not calculus. Ohio State requires a three-course sequence of “business math” that starts with “inequalities and equations” and supposedly moves on to integral and differential calculus, but apparently in a watered-down way. University of Florida requires no math for its math majors. University of Arizona seems to require a two semester “business math” course that covers basic probability and spreadsheets.</p>

<p>Good schools, I don’t doubt, have math requirements. But most students getting business degress don’t go to good schools.</p>