<p>I made a thread earlier stating that I wanted to transfer into the Industrial Engineering program. I am not necessarily abandoning that idea, but I was wondering about the school of Management as another option that I could transfer into (I saw that it was ranked fairly well). </p>
<p>If I were to take this option, I would most likely choose to major in Finance with a minor in Economics. Is this a good choice? Would it make a difference if I choose Economics Major with Finance minor? I wasn't sure if an economics major would still be housed in the College of Management.</p>
<p>Also, I saw on the website that there were "internships" are these the same as co-oping? Do you take a semester off to do these, or was it referring to summer internships?</p>
<p>My last question is, will a Finance Major with a minor in Economics from Georgia Tech's School of Management allow me to be competitive in the job market and for a potential MBA? I am considering switching from Engineering because I realized I am more interested in Economics and how the markets work and such. I think that this may fit me better, but I'd like to know if the job placement will be somewhat comparable to something like Industrial Engineering.</p>
<p>First, a finance minor is not offered at Tech. You can’t major in Finance but you can concentrate in it while majoring in the Business Admin. There is an econ minor. Econ is a liberal arts major.</p>
<p>Would it be a good choice? Yes, GA tech’s business program is solid. Is it worth the extra tuition and time to minor in econ? In my opinion no, but I haven’t done it and haven’t applied for a job with that specific major/minor combination so take that opinion with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>You can do internships and it is not the same as co-oping. Co-op is a program that gives you a designator on your degree. You must complete 3 semesters of work (2 being spring/fall semesters) normally with the same company but that is not required. I don’t know if you can co-op as a business student but if you can, very few business students do. A lot of them do internships, though. An internship is just one semester of work for a company and getting paid for it possible but is less common as a business major.</p>
<p>You won’t be as competitive for a job with a business degree as you would with an engineering degree, but you will likely do better in a major you’re interested in. That doesn’t mean your job prospects will be bad, but engineering job prospects from Tech are great. As far as an MBA goes, that depends on your work experience a lot more than your major. Simply majoring in something in undergrad is really not that big of a factor.</p>
<p>Thats the kind of thing I was looking for (should have been more specific initially). Basically what I want is how actively recruited GT’s Management School is, because I’ve heard a lot about the Engineering, but not the Management. Would it be worth transferring to from out of state?</p>
<p>Honestly, it depends on where you’re coming from and what you want to do with your career. It looks like your options are Fisher and GT. I know Fisher is a very good school (like GT) but I’m not sure who recruits there, so I can’t really give you any perspective on the differences.</p>
<p>As far as Business vs. Engineering, it’s like comparing a BMW to a Ferrari. No matter how nice the BMW is, it’s not going to compare to a Ferrari. The engineering school at GT is one of the top programs in the world (and in Industrial Engineering, it is the top program in the world by a considerable margin), so it’s not a fair comparison with the business school.</p>
<p>I just saw your post in the banking forum, so let me add a few things:</p>
<p>While banks and management consulting firms are on GT’s campus, GT is not a top target for these firms, and banking/consulting is an exception at GT, not the norm. If you look at a place like Harvard, you’ll see 25% of the student body going into these types of positions. At Tech, it’s more like 5-10 people per year, and those people are exceptional students.</p>
<p>So if your goal is banking, should Tech be the first option? Probably not. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Duke, etc (the historical target schools) are a better option as they are stronger feeders to that field. But if those schools are off the table, Tech will give you a shot at getting in front of recruiters, something that the vast, vast majority of schools will not give you. You just need to work a little harder to make sure your application looks great.</p>
<p>The reason why I asked this question was I am not sure if Engineering is something that I truly want. I was interested in Industrial Engineering (and specifically GT) because of its relation to Economics and the business field in general. But right now I am having second thoughts because, what really interested me is the business side. I do not know if I want to suffer through courses that I am not interested in (or particularly good at) because my GPA will be affected. </p>
<p>Since I was already interested in transferring to GT, I wanted to see if I should still consider it for the school of management. The school I am currently at is in Ohio, so Ohio State would be In state for me to transfer. I am in the process of looking at other schools that offer a good Finance program (that is well recruited by firms and i-banks). I just assumed OSU would be a good choice if I couldn’t get into some of the other choices out of state. I saw that GT was ranked fairly well in terms of return on investment, so that is another thing for me to consider.</p>
<p>Engineering is not about courses or concepts or ideas. First, and foremost, engineering is about how to look at problems and solve them. Engineers are taught to have a logical approach to problem solving that’s not natural to most people. This is the reason that engineers are high sought after by all sorts of fields, not just engineering fields.</p>
<p>It’s nice to say “Hmm… business. I’d like to do that” but it’s another thing to actually be good at solving business problems and have a successful career. For many people, gaining the problem solving approach taught in engineering is a strong stepping stone into business, and the conceptual part of business is learned either through experience or an MBA. That’s not right for everyone, but it’s right for many people, which is why engineering is historically the most common major for Harvard MBA classes.</p>
<p>So I guess that’s a long way of saying that you shouldn’t discount engineering just because you don’t want to be an engineer long-term. This is especially true of industrial engineering, which deals with managing companies and creating contracts.</p>
<p>I would be lying if I didn’t say that I am concerned with the difficulty of the course work in Engineering compared to something like finance/econ/accounting. I would rather have a higher GPA in one of those majors, than struggling in Engineering (when I am not as interested as in other things). I excelled in Economics, Statistics and history’s without having to put much (if any) effort in high school. While I still did well in calc and physics (because they were WAY too easy), I didn’t have very good teachers and feel behind the 8-ball now because the courses in high school were too basic and easy. For example: I got a really high A in Physics without knowing anything about Vectors. Here it is assumed as common knowledge. I know I can be successful in a Finance/Economic type major, and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t want to take the easier path. The question for me is will the benefit of working very hard in college and struggling with engineering course work make enough of a difference after school (assuming that I am competitive for the firms/i-banks that recruit at a school like GT).</p>
<p>I guess at this point I am just kind of ranting to myself. Thank you for the help, though.</p>
<p>If you can’t handle the difficult course work of engineering, what makes you think you can handle working at the banks? Those firms hire the top students from the top schools who are exceptionally intelligent. You need to be able to think quickly, analyze completely, and influence others. It’s not simply a case where you get a job and automatically succeed. That’s why they only recruit from certain schools, require high GPAs, have very difficult interview processes, and pay exceptionally well.</p>
<p>Some people think of a career like college admissions - once you get in the vast majority of people eventually graduate. It’s not like that in banks and consulting. The majority of people who are hired leave after 2 years. It’s less than 15% that can stick it out and make it to the top levels / big money. If your plan is to always take the easy path, what are the chances you’ll be in that 15% competing against MIT PhD engineers and Harvard MBAs who have worked incredibly hard their entire life?</p>