I’m a senior in HS and I thought that I wanted to go into engineering, but I’m having second thoughts. Finance showed up as a “fallback” major (no offense intended) if engineering killed me.
What classes do you take? What’s it like? What internship/job opportunities exist and are they decently paying?
Any input is appreciated!
A few comments…
If you switch out of engineering you would likely have to navigate an internal transfer to the business school at whatever school you attend. You should see if that is a viable possibility when considering colleges. Also see if such a transfer would add to the time needed to obtain your undergraduate degree.
If you do switch into a business school you will start off by taking a variety of introductory courses in different business disciplines (ex. accounting, finance, IT, marketing etc.) so you will have time to learn for yourself about the different areas and to see where your interests and aptitudes lie.
If you want to see what courses you take as a finance major you can go online to most any school and review the courses and course descriptions.
Finance is generally considered to be an employable major – of course it depends on many things including what companies recruit at your college, your GPA, how you interview, any work experience etc. you may have etc.
As far as internships go most companies want them. As far as pay Upitt, Xavier U, Fordham and Temple have told me ~75% of their finance internships are paid.
^^^Many firms offer internships for college credit rather than paid internships, especially in the years before a student is a senior.
Keep in mind that most firms are open to undergrads learning finance/business related skills on the job, and won’t expect them to necessarily learn these skills while in college.
If you’re unsure about finance, do note that choosing an engineering/liberal arts major won’t close any doors in business-related internships, but it doesn’t work the other way round; finance majors can’t really pursue engineering internships for instance.
^^^We’re getting off topic a bit, but I’d disagree with the above comment to a large extent. For positions in areas such as finance, in my experience (35 years working in NYC in accounting/finance) most companies want to interview students who are coming out of undergraduate business schools. In general, is helpful to show up with some skills that could help you do the job you are interviewing for. Just as one can’t expect to get an engineering internship without studying engineering, one should assume it will be difficult to get a business related internship without studying business (or economics at a strong college). I won’t say it never happens, but a liberal arts degree can make getting a business internship less likely.
Your intro level courses will be macro/micro econ, financial/managerial accounting, calculus, statistics, business law, and intro to finance. There’s always hybrid degrees like engineering management:
http://www.mtu.edu/business/undergraduate/engineering-management/
^^^The classes noted above would be part of a business core curriculum which one would take in any undergraduate b-school regardless of major.
True, generally a finance concentration is somwhere around 4-9 specific requirements depending on b-school and it will encompass things like: real estate finance, risk management, investment, etc
For an example, here’s the Bryant University finance concentration curriculum
http://catalog.bryant.edu/undergraduate/collegeofbusiness/financedepartment/financeconcentration/
I’m not saying every single one is like this, but their website lays it out really nicely.