<p>Hey guys
im really stuck between these two colleges.
I want to major in either Business Adm at Pepperdine
or Economics/Management Science at UCSD.
After undergrad, i want to get an MBA.</p>
<p>i got a scholarship from pepperdine so the prices are pretty much the same.</p>
<p>Pepperdine f’sho!</p>
<p>Apples and oranges.</p>
<p>One caveat, though, just for your information.</p>
<p>MBA programs (including top schools) don’t care about your major. I’m at a good b-school right now and know people who were anything from business to history to engineering to religious studies. </p>
<p>The main factors in order of importance are: 1) work experience (3+ years full-time), 2) GMAT (for top 8, shoot for 700+), and 3) GPA (3.5+ cumulative).</p>
<p>thank you!!!</p>
<p>Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble here, but UCSD is nationally ranked around the 30s and also enjoys major prestige internationally. Pepperdine, well, on that front, not even sure it is in the top 150. You really need to GO to the campuses. Pepp is on the bluff across the beach in Malibu; UCSD is in La Jolla, so you get beach with both. The experience can be very different between a large campus (although of all the UCs, SD really has the smallest “college” feel due to the colleges to which you are admitted. Pepperdine is very intimate and some great professors. But just go before you make a final decision. It’s not something you can decide by reading about them on the internet.</p>
<p>P.S. UCSD has 2 Nobel Laureates in Econ. Go to Triton Day if you are admitted. It’s tomorrow, Saturday.</p>
<p>@laplatinum, and not to burst your bubble, but I also graduated with a degree from the Econ department at UCSD and the majority (yes more than 50%) of my friends with an Econ degree are either unemployed or working a non-relevant job (sales, bartending, etc.). You tend to discount rankings and prestige when they don’t necessarily translate well into pragmatic issues like job placement.</p>
<p>If you’re a strong student, you’ll do well at either school in terms of securing employment. If you’re a poor student, it doesn’t matter if UCSD is ranked in the mid-30s and Pepperdine is outside the Top 100. UCSD doesn’t get the same type of recruitment that top schools get.</p>
<p>Oyama, wow. You’re this disappointed with your alma mater? I find it most disturbing that 50% of your friends with economics degrees are unemployed or underemployed. Is that a feature of poor career placement on the part of the university? So, now as a graduate of UCSD, if you could rewind the tape, would you make the same choice for your undergraduate career?</p>
<p>I’m at the #1 program for my PhD and had a full-ride at UCSD (and now a fellowship at my current school). I don’t regret a thing, but I also worked much harder than the majority of my peers throughout undergrad.</p>
<p>I made that point because UCSD doesn’t provide any benefits to mediocre students over Pepperdine; if you’re going to be exceptional, UCSD will have a higher ceiling in terms of doctoral courses you can take and the research you can be a part of as an undergraduate, but then again, I was the only undergraduate I knew of in the economics department taking any PhD seminars and there were maybe only two dozen of us total doing any research under professors. </p>
<p>Graduating with an economics degree with UCSD’s name printed on it is nothing special given the average student earning it and employers seem to realize it.</p>
<p>Anyway, I digress.</p>
<p>If your son (I’m guessing this is in reference to him based on past posts) got into a T25, go there instead. The recruitment presence is significantly higher at the UCLA+ level (and some of the middling regional powerhouses).</p>
<p>The low success is in part to the economics department/career services center simply not attracting the interest of corporations looking to hire graduating seniors, but it’s really mostly on the students themselves. The economics major has been getting easier decade after decade and it’s a shadow of what economics undergrads study at top undergraduate programs (UPenn Wharton’s, Chicago’s, Northwestern MMSS program, etc.). </p>
<p>The rigor of math for the Economics BA is a joke (it’s the same sequence a humanities major would take if they were at one of the colleges requiring a year of calculus). The fact that the required core classes are curved the amount they are is beyond me. It stems from the lack of math preparation, however, since all those who majored in the Math/Econ B.S. seemed to zip by them with A’s even before accounting for the curve (my ECON100A/AH class with Machina had a 30% = C- curve). </p>
<p>Then there is an entire gamut of electives students can choose from (at least back when I was there), such as Economics of Oceans, which counted just as much towards the degree as something more rigorous like Mathematical Economics (which every economics student should take if they ever want to get a graduate degree in economics or a job anywhere as an analyst).</p>
<p>Anyway, when I say “50%” of my friends being unemployed or underemployed, it’s mainly in reference to my friends who graduated with an Economics BA doing the bare minimum to complete their degree. Economics BAs who put in the effort to get work and internship experience were favored nicely in the job market.</p>
<p>My friends (like myself) who graduated with a Math/Econ BS seem to be doing much better. A couple of my friends are consultants at decent firms (BoozAllenHamilton, Deloitte), I have a friend working as a research associate at NBER (she was also in the honors program with me), at least 5 friends that I know of doing their PhD in Economics (I’m the only one who went towards the Business PhD route), and others in banking/analyst positions. </p>
<p>An Economics degree from UCSD is what you make of it. If you tailor it to meet the specifications that top employers want (more math, more analytical skills, and research experience) and also get work/internship experience on top of that, you’ll be set. Those qualities only describe a marginal proportion of the entire UCSD Economics population, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Really appreciate the detailed backdrop to your situation and to the culture of the econ major at UCSD. I will pass this over to my son to consider as he mulls over the big, final decision of where to go. I fully agree with the need for students to establish a greater focus on math, internships, and research. He’s presently working with a Yale law professor on a correlational study for his high school sociology class, so I know he gets this. Good luck on your PhD. A phenomenal undertaking.</p>