Student seeking for advice..

College Majors Business Major
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<p>I'm really stressed out right now regarding where to go to college. Before I get into the specifics, let me explain a little about my perspective and what path I am taking. I just want some advice and opinions.. I want to work in the investment banking industry.</p>

<p>I'm a transfer student majoring in sociology. I know all the stereotypes about sociology majors and the many questions that people tend to ask such as "how are you going to find a job?" or "you want to be a social worker?" Yes, I plan to find a job through my schools career center and no, I do not plan to become a social worker. Sociology is actually my "stepping stone" to get into Harvard Biz School or something equivalent to that caliber. My ambition has always been to major in sociology, get a very high gpa (hopefully >3.8), graduate and work for a few years while studying for GMATS, score a 700+ on my GMATS and pothen apply to Harvard MBA. It seems to me like a great way of getting into my desired school because I looked at the demographics of all the topic MBA programs in America, and most of them have social science majors representing the majority of admitted students who enrolled. In fact, I keep on hearing that students who major in business administration for undergrad tend to not get their MBA's because of how redundant it is. What do you guys think?</p>

<p>With that in mind, a lot of people are opposed to it. Mainly, the older generation relatives and family. One main opposition is that even though I graduated with a sociology degree with a high GPA, the big companies still won't hire me because I wont know any of the concepts or know how to do anything!</p>

<p>Now people of my generation who graduated recently told me that businesses don't even care about what you learned in undergrad. So what if you know a lot about finance?? My older friends tell me that businesses are willing to teach and train you if they think you are smart and if you graduated from a prestigious college. They say that your undergrad major has nothing to do with your first job. What do you guys think?</p>

<p>I guess what I'm worried about is not being able to find a job with a sociology major. I don't mind making less coming out of college compared to my business major counterparts because I know once I get into Harvard Biz school or anything near that caliber, I will easily bank $70,000 or more. I'm looking for long term growth and not short term satisfaction.. What do you guys think I should do?</p>

<p>Now you guys know about my perspective, below are the schools I'm debating between..</p>

<p>USC Marshall School Of Business: Major: Business Administration. Based on my financial aid and scholarships, I will only need to pay $7,000 a year to attend this private institution.</p>

<p>UCLA: Major: Sociology: I received the most prestigious and highest honor scholarship from UCLA-- The Regents Scholar. I received a full ride + a couple of very coveted benefits. </p>

<p>UC Berkeley: Major: Sociology: Based on my financial aid/ scholarships, I will only need to pay $4000 to $5000 a year if I decide to go there.</p>

<p>I need to decide by June 1st. I would highly appreciate if anyone on this forum would give me their opinion. Thanks</p>

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<p>dude, first off shorten your "situation"... your lucky i'm bored =), but you'll get more replies the shorter you make your question.</p>

<p>okay, so its true, you'll be able to get into business with any degree. but those jobs aren't going to be very appealing. i can't tell you specifics, but lets just say hypothetically if you get a B.S. in business, you'll make 50k out of undergrad. With a sociology going into business, you'll probably get 30k.</p>

<p>A B.S. in business will not be repetitive with MBA. Sure they'll cover some stuff you've already learned, but you'll learn much more, and go into more depth. And not to mention you get to choose concentrations (fields you'll specialize in).</p>

<p>If you get an undergrad in Sociology, you can make it into an MBA. Just make sure you have a compelling reason to do so and explain it in your personal statement (this goes for all majors).</p>

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<p>Okay..I didnt read your entire situation..but if you want to go into business..with UCLA major in business econ or something and for berkeley try to get into haas. These majors will look signficantly more impressive than sociology will. I think many firms consider it a "fluff" major.</p>

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<p>i would just go to ucla for free and with honors.</p>

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<p>Majoring in sociology is not a "stepping stone" to a Harvard MBA. Not at all. Do it if it is what genuinely interests you, but otherwise don't. It won't help you land an impressive job out of college, and won't help you get into HBS.</p>

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<p>yeah agree with jnpn, unless you really want to go into social-work or do research in sociology, don't major in it. If you want to go into business...majoring in soc. is just not the right direction to go in..</p>

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<p>I know you guys believe that sociology won't take me very far in the business world, but how come the statistics listed on Stanford and Harvard's webpage show that over the past years, the students admitted the most were humanities and social science majors?? Of many of the colleges that I am interested in, social science and humanities majors tend to represent a lot more than business administration or engineer. How do you explain that? Can someone shed more light on this?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/studentlife/class_profile.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/studentlife/class_profile.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Look... for the class of 2008, 43% of students were social sciences or humanities majors. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.hbs.edu/about/mba.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.hbs.edu/about/mba.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Now look at harvard.. it used to be that 50% of the students were social sciences undergrad majors but that is slowly declining though. Nonetheless, social science majors represent a VERY VERY big portion of admitted students in the MBA field. I've been trying to find out why for the longest time now but I still do not have any conclusive answers. Business administration majors usually are the lowest represented majors in business school. Why is that?</p>

<p>Before you guys flame me, I also heard that Stanford has a special MBA program that specifically states that no one who majored in business administration for undergrad may apply. I'm not entirely sure, but that is what I've heard from a friend who goes to Stanford for undergrad</p>

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<p>This is wrong on so many levels. First of all, the stat that you should be looking for is what percentage of sociology majors are accepted. The number of humanities & social science majors is irrelevant because you are not taking in to account how many applied. Also, humanities & social sciences is a broad term. How many of them do you think are econ majors? A lot. </p>

<p>I'm not saying you can't get in as a sociology major. But if you think it will help, you are very mistaken.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I was just going to say..I bet most of those are econ majors! Even a math major would be a better choice. Majoring in sociology is not going to impress harvard or other top mba programs, for sure.</p>

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<p>I think you're misinterpreting social science to mean sociology -- humanities and social sciences could be anything from econ to history to comparitive literature to theology. </p>

<p>If you believe the information you are learning in sociology will benefit you later in life or you're very interested in the field -- great! However, if you think you'll have a better chance of getting into a top MBA program because you're majoring in sociology instead of business, you're sorely mistaken.</p>

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<p>UCLA for free is the easy choice here</p>

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<p>I think berkeley for 4 or 5k is definately the best choice. It is more prestiguos than UCLA and their bschool is excellent (UCLA doesnt even have one). But even if you don't get into haas, an econ degree from berkeley would look great for recuriters.</p>

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<p>First of all I think you need to ask yourself why you want to get to a top MBA. What is it you want to do after business school? Business school is not a destination, is a step along the path that is your career. You shouldn't trying to figure out the best way to get into Harvard Business School, you should be trying to figure out the best way to get the job you want to end your career.</p>

<p>I think in general the responses you've gotten so far have been pretty terrible. Clearly there is no such thing as a stepping stone to HBS. You seem to understand this. Its possible to get into a top business school from any academic background. You've (correctly) noted that there are more undergrad social science majors at HBS than business majors. This has a little to do with undergrad business schools making MBA's redundant but much more to do with the fact that most of the top schools in the country do not have business schools. Kids from top undergrad schools tend to end up in the top MBA programs.</p>

<p>If you really want to study sociology than this is a no brainer. Go study sociology. If you do well in school (and a 3.8 is pretty spectacular) and are aggressive in pursuing opportunities you'll have no problem getting a good job after college from UCLA or UCB with a degree in sociology. There will be a few less avenues available to you from one of those schools than from Marshall. I'm thinking specifically about real estate and accounting, and there maybe others. Again if your goal is to end up as a partner at a Big 4 firm, or in real estate development, perhaps you should go to Marshall. But good jobs will be available to sociology students who do well. You could go into operations, marketing, finance, sales etc. for a Fortune 500 company, consulting, or any number of other avenues. After you get your first job, your chances of getting into HBS will no longer depend very much on where you did your undergrad or what you studied while you were there (at least not given the choices you are choosing between).</p>

<p>If you are not actually interested in sociology, and just want to do it because you think it will help you get into business school, study something else. Sociology has a reputation of being an easier major. Perhaps the easiest major. For this reason a sociology major is going to have a (slightly) harder time finding a job than econ major (or a psych/philosophy/history major). Both econ and sociology (in my opinion) are very interesting. But econ is much applicable (to business) and somewhat more quantitative. </p>

<p>I don't think your job prospects (or MBA prospects) would be terribly different coming from Berkley or UCLA. In my opinion, your decision between those two schools should be made on other factors (although perhaps you should consider if you'd rather be in Northern or Southern California after you graduate).</p>

<p>Also it seems apparent that many of the responders on this thread don't really understand what sociology is. To become a social worker you would study social work (either at the undergraduate or graduate level) not sociology. Sociology is a social science that studies how people interact and are affecting by social institutions. I would suggest an intro sociology course to anyone. Sociology offers a very different perspective on how to look at the world. Also they tend to be pretty easy. Alright I'll get off my high horse now.</p>

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<p>holla9, that was an amazing reply. you couldn't have said it any better.</p>

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<p>holla9, I don't see what was "terrible" about my response that majoring in sociology isn't a stepping stone to HBS. You seem to agree with it. Second, you say that the OP "seems to understand this". Have you even read his posts in this thread? All he's talking about is a stepping stone to HBS. I do agree that you have to study social work, not sociology, to do social work. Don't really see how that matters though, considering he is not planning to work in that field. </p>

<p>Other than that, I think your first paragraph had a very good point.</p>

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<p>When I said stepping stone, I meant that my undergrad studies would be one part of my academic career. Everyone needs a masters in something these days to even be considered useful. Sociology will allow me to understand why certain groups of people interact in certain ways and will allow me to not be ethnocentric towards any type of group. I guess you guys got all offended when I said "stepping stone" as a sure avenue to HBS. That is NOT WHAT I MEANT! SUre you can try to copy paste what I said in my OP, but I'm not going to try to refute your claims. I'm just so curious as to why social science majors represent the single largest portion of admitted students into those schools. Now I kind of understand-- the top IVY league schools are the ones who probably apply to the business schools since they don't have undergrad biz majors.. Now let me ask you guys this.. If my ultimate goal is to receive an MBA, everyone can agree that the first five years of experience is crucial right? </p>

<p>Now would I be able to earn more experience and land that coveted first job with a USC business degree or a UCLA sociology degree? I am an extremely pro-active type of guy who will do all means to search for opportunities. I actually don't like to have things handed to me at all. Would a business degree guarantee that I will make more money coming out than a ucla sociology degree for the first couple of years before i get my MBA?</p>

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<p>Minuscule differences in average salary for entry-level jobs comes second to the actual job opportunities available.</p>

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<p>If your goal is to make money, than yes, a USC bschool degree will land you a pretty good job! USC has fabulous connetions around the L.A./Cali area especially. I'm not sure what you can do with a sociology major besides social work or research. You are not going be impressive in the business world with that degree, thats for sure.</p>

<p>And as we stated earlier, the majority of those social-science majors you mention are econ, math, or some combination of the two. I'd say about 90% of them fell into that category.</p>

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<p>Mathematics is not a social science. I'm sure a lot of those, if not the majority, of those social science kids did Econ, but I doubt its anywhere near 90%.</p>

<p>Employment data:</p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Soc.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Soc.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.marshall.usc.edu/emplibrary/2006%20Placement%20Report.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.marshall.usc.edu/emplibrary/2006%20Placement%20Report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Okay, sorry to bring back an old topic, but I have a brand new dilemma. I was one of the very few students around the nation to be accepted as a transfer into Johns Hopkins University as a Sociology major. Every1 of you guys said that companies love to recruit at prestigious universities and I do understand that JHU is no where near the IVY- League level, but do you guys still think I should stick with USC and do Biz? Now.. the way I look at it is that after i graduate, i plan to move back to southern cali and coming from an employers perspective, wouldn't I stand out from all the other applicants since they would probably be tired of looking at UCLA, Berkeley, and USC resumes all day? I would think that they would put more emphasis on my resume and be more fascinated by a student from JHU in a liberal arts major? Is it wishful thinking? Honestly, would a sociology degree from the prestigious JHU take me farther in life than an ordinary business admin degree from USC? Can you give me some inputs? Now? Thanks</p>