Ross Minor with Engineering (IOE)?

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of Michigan
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<p>I'm interesting in engineering, especially IOE at UM, because it suits my interests - math, solving problems/puzzles, not so much technical sciencey stuff. I'm also interested in business/finance, though. I see myself working in i-banking/hedge funds down the road, but not sure about that. Penn's M&T program: <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/fisher/"&gt;http://www.upenn.edu/fisher/&lt;/a> and Princeton's ORFE: <a href="http://orfe.princeton.edu/academics/undergraduate"&gt;http://orfe.princeton.edu/academics/undergraduate&lt;/a> really interest me as they combine engineering and business and give students excellent job prospects but they are EXTREMELY selective, and I doubt I'll get in to either. So I wanna do something like that at Michigan (excellent engineering and business) that combines my interests, is flexible, and could get me a good job on Wall St. but is still manageable that I can do in 4 years. I'm pretty confident that I could get into Ross as a pre-admit, but I'm not sure if I wanna give up the technical background from CoE/IOE for the Ross networking/job placement. I've read that doing the IOE/Ross dual degree is a pain and not really worth it. From what I've read on CC, it seems to me that a BSE will give you more opportunities and is more versatile than a BBA (I'm not 100% sure what I wanna do). I'll probably get an MBA after UG, as it is very similar curriculum to BBA (right?). So, if I had to choose just one concentration, I'd do IOE for the technical background and versatility. Is this sound rationale? However, Ross just started offering a minor, which, from the website: <a href="http://www2.bus.umich.edu/MyiMpact/academics/businessminor"&gt;http://www2.bus.umich.edu/MyiMpact/academics/businessminor&lt;/a> , sounds like it allows students access to all the perks of Ross (recruitment, networking, etc.). Would tacking on the Ross minor to IOE make me more attractive to top IB firms/recruiters than Ross majors? Could anyone give me some advice?</p>

<p>I know that there have been threads like this in the past, but I feel that the Ross minor is a game-changer.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

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<p>Nubswitstubs is a good person to ask because he was at one point dual-enrolled in Ross and CoE doing IOE. </p>

<p>The rationale behind doing IOE alone is reasonable. I don’t think anyone can say yet what the value of the Ross minor is yet, it’s too new. Keep in mind that you’re gonna work a few years between finishing undergrad and getting your MBA, so consider how much you care about what exactly you’re doing in those few years. </p>

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Keep in mind that the stats of the average pre-admit are comparable to most Ivy Leagues, and admissions are quite random.

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<p>I’m not sure why this is spouted so much here. Engineering degrees will get you jobs within Engineering, while a BBA job will get you a job in marketing/consulting/finance/accounting. Sorry to say, but you’re not going to be recruited for banking jobs out of Engineering. There’s literally no incentive for an investment banking firm to hire an engineer who likely has a lower GPA and no finance background when they can hire a 3.8 Ross BBA who has the requisite knowledge to hit the ground running. It’s not that the background is hard to possess or IB is inherently difficult (quite the opposite actually), but 99/100 times the firm will choose the person with the business background.</p>

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This isn’t true. There are no recruiting benefits from the minor, at least not yet. I don’t see this changing any time soon because it would completely disincentivize students from pursuing a BBA when they can just opt for an engineering/BBA minor combo or something else. You can’t drop your resume for Ross jobs, which realistically is the most important benefit BBA students get. Sure, you can show up to the corporate presentations, but anyone can. It’s all posted on the Ross website, so if you have a friend in the business school, you can just ask them when the presentations are. </p>

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<p>Short answer is no, it won’t. The people who come back to recruit at the business school are almost always Ross alums. They recruit their own, not engineers. Not only that, but you won’t be involved in On Campus Recruiting throught Ross as of yet. All they’ll see is somebody who has an engineering degree, and they’ll wonder if you were too dumb to get into Ross (which is severely misguided and altogether wrong, I’ll admit, but just the way it’s perceived) or if you’re really even interested in business. Again, there’s no incentive to hire an Engineering student because they have the tried and true method of just hiring business school students instead, since it’s worked for them since the beginning of time.</p>

<p>Also, to address another point here…

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<p>It sounds like you’re still in high school, and I’m not sure you know what exactly working in banking is like in terms of lifestyle. If you come in as an analyst, you’re working 90 hours weeks. If you come in as an associate, the hours are still probably 70-80 on average. </p>

<p>If you don’t come in to investment banking as an analyst (i.e. right out of college), then you realistically don’t have a great chance at working for a reputable hedge fund. This is a massive generalization and there are tons of exceptions which I could get into, but HFs recruit top analysts out of top banking programs. If you come into banking as an associate (which you would do after you got an MBA), then your chances of exiting to hedge funds are incredibly limited.</p>

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<p>To add on further… People on this site like to tout Michigan as being a great target for investment banking and stuff for whatever reason. Realistically, though, if you’re not in Ross, you’ll face a huge uphill battle because Michigan non-Ross is not really a target. I would guess that students outside of the b-school landing investment banking jobs probably number around 20-30 each year, and of those, I would say only 5-10 are going to NYC and even fewer to BBs which everyone seems to salivate over.</p>

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<p>@thestudmuffin‌ I disagree with you on certain topics</p>

<p>“If you don’t come in to investment banking as an analyst (i.e. right out of college), then you realistically don’t have a great chance at working for a reputable hedge fund. This is a massive generalization and there are tons of exceptions which I could get into, but HFs recruit top analysts out of top banking programs. If you come into banking as an associate (which you would do after you got an MBA), then your chances of exiting to hedge funds are incredibly limited.”</p>

<p>I don’t understand why students think that the hedge fund world only consist of long/short equity and event driven, when they are only a small part of the hedge fund universe. I am guessing that’s because that’s the most publicized areas of the hedge fund universe, given that they are things that the general mass can understand. These are spaces that as you said, hire only out of IBD (actually that’s not even true, these spaces also hire out of sell side research and long only research). </p>

<p>The way I see it, background hired from for each space (in order of likelihood)
Long/short equity - IBD, Research
Event Driven - IBD (mostly M&A)
Fundamental Credit - Research/IBD
Quantitative Credit - Trading, Research
Convertible Arbitrage - Trading
Structured Credit - Trading/Research
Volatility Arbitrage - Trading, Quant Research
Statistical Arbitrage - Quant Research, random Phd programs
Fixed Income/Global Macro - Trading, Research
High Level Portfolio Analysis/Quant Research/Risk/Portfolio Construction - Math/Stats/Engineers out of school</p>

<p>“I’m not sure why this is spouted so much here. Engineering degrees will get you jobs within Engineering, while a BBA job will get you a job in marketing/consulting/finance/accounting. Sorry to say, but you’re not going to be recruited for banking jobs out of Engineering. There’s literally no incentive for an investment banking firm to hire an engineer who likely has a lower GPA and no finance background when they can hire a 3.8 Ross BBA who has the requisite knowledge to hit the ground running. It’s not that the background is hard to possess or IB is inherently difficult (quite the opposite actually), but 99/100 times the firm will choose the person with the business background.”</p>

<p>If your universe of high finance only includes investment banking, then what you say is true. However, investment banking isn’t even the best finance job you can get out of undergrad. In trading recruiting, engineering holds its own. Almost every BB trading arm that recruits Ross stays a second day and recruit engineering the next day. Their quant arms would exclusively interview engineering and not Ross. The top Chicago market making firms (DRW, CTC, Optiver, Getco) exclusively recruits at engineering and wouldn’t sniff Ross. The high frequency shops obviously only recruit CS majors. Long onlys and hedge funds recruit for their quantitative needs out of COE. These are all jobs that pay similar if not higher (high frequency can pay up to half a mil to a mil couple years out back in the hay days if you make it) than IBD out of school where you work a lot less hours. The trade off is obviously you don’t get the career flexibility afterwards. But point is, unless you are deadset on investment banking and corporate finance type of jobs within finance, I don’t think it’s much of a trade off, if at all, to do engineering instead. For me back then, I knew was more interested in the markets than the boring transactional stuff. Recruiting was fine out of COE. I had interviews at almost every BB for trading/quant research, every notable Chicago trading firm, and a few long onlys (blackrock, fidelity, capital group) and converted a fair number into offers. Btw I also did 3 investment banking interviews (the ones that had drops at the general LSA site) and got tacked onto their Ross interview schedule…even converted the RBS one into offer.</p>

<p>As I said, I agree with you that if banking is your goal, absolutely go to Ross. But I think when people say opportunities or versatility, they are referring to the range of possibilities. </p>

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<p>DRW held events with the honors mech e society. I have some of their shirts.</p>

<p>Why does it seem so many high school students are posting in here about doing IOE then going to banking or finance or whatever? What exactly made that so popular? Do they just see the money and nothing else? </p>

<p>You’re probably gonna change your mind during your time at Michigan. You have 4 years of classes, many company info sessions, some internships, etc. If you don’t like the “technical and sciency” stuff then you might not want to go engineering. Sure, IOE will contain the least of that and will be relatively easy, but you’ll still need to take all the engineering prerequisites. Math up to calc 4 plus and advanced math, mechanical physics, e&m physics, chemistry, intro programming. </p>

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<p>“Sure, IOE will contain the least of that and will be relatively easy, but you’ll still need to take all the engineering prerequisites. Math up to calc 4 plus and advanced math, mechanical physics, e&m physics, chemistry, intro programming.”</p>

<p>If you are in IOE, you don’t need to take Calc 4 (Math 216). Instead, you need to take Linear Algebra (Math 214). There is no advanced math requirement for IOE students either.</p>

<p>Furthermore, I recommend that you take as many of those prerequisites that @ThisIsMichigan mentioned outside of Michigan (get AP credit for these courses or take them at another university during the summer). You don’t need the information from most of those classes to do well in IOE. Furthermore, some of them, like the physics classes (140/141 and 240/241), are just terrible.</p>

<p>If it’s not too late, I recommend you do the following:</p>

<p>Take the following AP Exams
-Chemistry
-Mechanical Physics (the calculus based one)
-Physics Electricity and Magnetism (the calculus based one)
-Calculus BC</p>

<p>Whatever you don’t get credit for, I would then recommend that you take as a guest student at another university. You should probably take Calculus 3 as a guest student as well.</p>

<p>The two most useful prerequisites are ENGR 100 (intro to engineering, you work on a team project and the topic depends on the task) and ENGR 101 (intro to programming). Some IOE courses involve teamwork and some involve programming (and some involve both).</p>

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<p>Oh wow, you don’t even need Diffy Qs? Did not know that.</p>

<p>Also, what was awful about physics? </p>

<p>I do agree though that getting as much credit as you can outside of Michigan just makes sense. Not necessarily because the courses at Michigan are bad, but because it will give you more flexibility going forward. You can also take courses at local colleges over the summer. I knocked out Physics E&M and Philosophy at a local CC the summer after freshman year.</p>

<p>Careful though, some of the requirements for moving credits over can be rough. For example, I took both the Mechanical and E&M AP exams in HS. Our teacher was on maternity leave the 2nd semester and no one in the school could teach E&M. So no one really did much that second semester. I thought I could just teach myself the material for the exam (dumb). I ended up getting like a 2 or 3 on EM and dragged my Mechanical grade down to a 4.</p>

<p>Another example. I took calc 3 and linera algebra my Sr. year of HS before school started but at the HS, taught by an accredited teacher. Turns out Michigan didn’t give me credit because it was taken at my HS… ugh. So that sucked.</p>