Undergraduate Business Major a Negative?

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

<p>Hi, I'm a sophomore at NYU Stern majoring in finance. I chose NYU Stern knowing that business will be my career for a long time. I've been reading on this site and some others that economics/math/engineering majors are always a better route for top MBA programs (top 7-8's) because they want some diversity. I mean...they are probably thinking...what is the point of studying business if you already have done so for 4 years at an undergrad level?</p>

<p>So that is my worry. Stern will be great for recruiting and getting jobs after undergraduate...but it may be a negative when it comes to applying for grarduate schools. So with everything else equal, I may be at a disadvantage to someone say...from UMich or Cornell with econ degree. Is my worry legitimate? Your thoughts?</p>

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<p>No, you're not. The fact of the matter is that your work experience is going to be much more important than your major. Being a Finance major will help you get hired, Stern is harder to get into than NYU's econ major program, which makes it more elite and probably leads to better recruiting prospoects.</p>

<p>If a school offers both a business program and an economics program for undergrads it's almost always better for them to do the undergrad business program because it's usually harder to get into and leads to better recruiting.</p>

<p>so, get a good job and obtain some good years of work experience to help.</p>

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If a school offers both a business program and an economics program for undergrads it's almost always better for them to do the undergrad business program because it's usually harder to get into and leads to better recruiting.

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<p>I don't know about that. I think that's too general of a statement. There are a LOT of no-name schools out there that offer business programs, most of which, frankly, are not of particularly high quality. Keep in mind that business is the major in which the most bachelor's degrees are earned in all US colleges, and clearly most of those graduates don't come from schools like Wharton or Sloan. Most of them come from low-end, no-name schools where the major really isn't that hard. </p>

<p>I'll put it to you this way. A large proportion of Division 1-A football players at the top football schools major in business. Part of the reason may be that those players are simply interested in business as they figure they may need business skills to handle their potential pro career and afterwards. But another big reason is that, frankly, the business major is easy at many schools. On the other hand, you don't see too many Div 1-A football players majoring in Economics. By the same token, the business major is often times seen as the 'joke' major at those schools. </p>

<p>The point is, I don't think you can generalize. Some business programs are harder and better than the economics programs at certain schools. Majoring in business at Wharton is tougher than majoring in Econ at Penn, and the recruiting is better. On the other hand, some business programs are easier than the economics programs at other schools, and the recruiting may actually be worse, because of its reputation at those schools as being a joke major.</p>

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<p>Sakky, I've never heard of an instance where the economics program of a school is regarded as better than the business program of a school, especially at a lower end school.</p>

<p>The fact of the matter is that economics teaches things that will have less real life application than the business programs, so at a lower end school where you'll encounter bad job prospects it seems pretty likely that they would be in favor of hiring a business major because they might have to train them less (than an economics major who's never taken any accounting or other business core classes) and it's not like lower end jobs are going to have great training programs like i-banks or consulting firms.</p>

<p>Also note that I mentioned the fact that it's usually due to the business program having tougher admissions standards.</p>

<p>at UT Austin the economics majors will encounter harder courses than the business majors, econ majors will have to take 3 semesters of calc (versus 2 for business majors) 4 semesters of a foreign language (versus 0 for business majors), and generally will have a tougher courses but they're recruited worse because the economics program is in the school of liberal arts. What ends up happening is the biz students are recruited for better jobs while the econ majors end up working for Dell.</p>

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Sakky, I've never heard of an instance where the economics program of a school is regarded as better than the business program of a school, especially at a lower end school.

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Cal Poly San Luis?</p>

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<p>At Stanford BS, over 50% of the MBA's had a social science background and I would argue that many of them had an economics degree so no I don't think there's a disadvantage if you're at a school like Princeton where the only business related degree is econ, but if you're at a school like Penn that offers both undergrad business degree and econ, it might be better to go for the business degree.</p>

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<p>Actually, at Penn, there is so "business" degree per se. You still graduate with Bachelors of Science in Economics which is a little more practical than Bachelors of Arts in Economics, but nevertheless still an econ degree.</p>

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<p>"Actually, at Penn, there is so "business" degree per se. You still graduate with Bachelors of Science in Economics which is a little more practical than Bachelors of Arts in Economics, but nevertheless still an econ degree."</p>

<p>does that applys to other UG business schools to?o</p>

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<p>few undergraduate business schools are worth their salt by comparison to arts-and-sciences programs at top-tier undergrad programs. However, alltheway's point about Penn was for the normal college, not Wharton. Wharton undergrad is, of course, one of the best preparations for business you can get as an undergrad.</p>

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<p>
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Sakky, I've never heard of an instance where the economics program of a school is regarded as better than the business program of a school, especially at a lower end school.

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<p>Ok - I will give you one: MIT. I think even most Sloan graduates would concede that while Sloan is highly regarded, the MIT Economics department is probably more so. The MIT Economics program is arguably the best economics program in the country, and perhaps the world. While Sloan is a fine school, I think very few people would assert that Sloan is the best business school in the world. Strong program? Yes. More highly regarded than the MIT Economics program? That is highly questionable, simply due to the sheer strength of the Econ program. </p>

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The fact of the matter is that economics teaches things that will have less real life application than the business programs, so at a lower end school where you'll encounter bad job prospects it seems pretty likely that they would be in favor of hiring a business major because they might have to train them less (than an economics major who's never taken any accounting or other business core classes) and it's not like lower end jobs are going to have great training programs like i-banks or consulting firms.

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<p>I didn't know that we were talking about the 'applicability' of the curriculum. I was just talking about the regard of the program. Physics at any school, for example, tends to be highly regarded just for the sheer difficulty of the subject, regardless of the lack of applicability it may have. The thinking is that anybody who is good enough to get a physics degree is probably a hard-working and sharp guy, and hence is probably easily trainable. The exact same thinking applies when the consulting firms and investment banks would rather hire an Art History student from Harvard than a business student from, say, Southwest Missouri State, despite the lack of applicability of art history to business. </p>

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Also note that I mentioned the fact that it's usually due to the business program having tougher admissions standards.

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<p>I don't know that this business programs are usually really harder to get into. I think you are blinded by the top business schools. Yet the fact is, there are THOUSANDS of no-name schools out there, many of which offer business programs, and the truth is, these business programs are often times filled with rather lazy and indifferent students. </p>

<p>I said this before, I'll say it again. Why are there so many scholarship football players majoring in business, yet so few who major in economics? Part of it may be because the players realize they may be running businesses later on in their life. But let's be perfectly honest. A lot of it simply has to do with the fact that the business major at many schools is easy. When you got players from places like LSU, Florida State, Auburn, Oklahoma, and like schools majoring in business, we all know that what many of them are actually doing is "majoring in football", and they choose a business major just because they know it's easy and so they will be able to stay eligible to play ball while having to put in very little effort in studying. Seriously, anybody who watches college football knows that this is what is really going on. Very few of these scholarship football players are going to major in difficult subjects such as engineering, economics, physics, mathematics, computer science, etc. </p>

<p>What I am talking about is the simple fact that at many schools, the business majors are basically considered the 'joke' majors filled with lazy students who are just not that interested in studying. And everybody, including the recruiters, know this. This is obviously far less true in any top 50 program. But like I said, there are probably THOUSANDS of programs out there.</p>

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<p>Question: Would majoring in something totally unrelated like molecular bio or engineering help you get into MBA Business school b/c you might have a skill others don't have? That's what my dad says, but I think that if you have no knowledge in business or econ, that would never work.</p>

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<p>ok...let me make this more specific...would going to Wharton, Ross, Sloan, Haas, or Stern be a disadvantage against kids from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago, Duke, Columbia, etc. when applying to top MBA programs?</p>

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<p>I don't think so. But rather than asking here, why don't you ask the schools you are interested in? Just ask if they have a class profile showing what the undergraduate degrees were of the current students. Years ago I got an MBA from Columbia. I remember getting information on our class detailing undergraduate degrees and how many years of work experience before going to b school. This class profile was handed out to all incoming students.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Question: Would majoring in something totally unrelated like molecular bio or engineering help you get into MBA Business school b/c you might have a skill others don't have? That's what my dad says, but I think that if you have no knowledge in business or econ, that would never work.

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<p>if you have great work experience sure.</p>

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ok...let me make this more specific...would going to Wharton, Ross, Sloan, Haas, or Stern be a disadvantage against kids from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago, Duke, Columbia, etc. when applying to top MBA programs?

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<p>No, it's not that big of a deal. This whole issue has been addressed so many times, MBA admissions are mostly a matter of your work experience. If your school has good recruiting and you actually work and do well at your job you're good to go.</p>

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I didn't know that we were talking about the 'applicability' of the curriculum. I was just talking about the regard of the program. Physics at any school, for example, tends to be highly regarded just for the sheer difficulty of the subject, regardless of the lack of applicability it may have. The thinking is that anybody who is good enough to get a physics degree is probably a hard-working and sharp guy, and hence is probably easily trainable. The exact same thinking applies when the consulting firms and investment banks would rather hire an Art History student from Harvard than a business student from, say, Southwest Missouri State, despite the lack of applicability of art history to business.

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<p>Sakky, you can't be comparing Art history majors to Southen Missouri State business majors in this example. What I wrote was pretty specific, it was in a case of where you go to a school that's not so great and you have both a business program and a liberal arts economics program and in those cases it's always going to be better to pick the business program over the economics program.</p>

<p>And don't talk about physics either, this is strictly with economics and business programs when they're offered at the same school. I'll agree, at MIT that's probably the case but at most other schools it is not the case.</p>

<p>If you go to some low end school like University of Houston and they have both an economics and a business program, are you trying to argue that you'd be better off majoring in economics over business? Do you really think that would help you? I mean come on -- if you graduate from University of Houston your career prospects are already going to be somewhat limited, like I said earlier you're going to be looking at career programs where they're not going to have intensive training like at investment banks and consulting firms, you're going to be looking at companies that don't have those kinds of resources and are going to want people who have a more concrete foundation on things like finance and accounting. And if you want to go from University of Houston to working for a BB bank, you're already in a bad position because you go to a non-target, but if you had a good GPA and some actual finance and accounting knowledge it might help compared to taking the economics classes. Economics isn't going to be as applicable as majoring in something like Finance or Accounting and you're going to be hit with some worse job prospects, especially at a lower end school.</p>

<p>You say that I'm looking too much at the top business schools but maybe you're not focusing enough on the kinds of jobs people get from the lower end business schools. They're going to be jobs that will prefer business majors over liberal arts majors.</p>

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<p>All the MBA schools advertise this on their websites, and it's easily accessible. For example, Harvard: <a href="http://www.hbs.edu/mba/studentlife/divclassprofile.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.hbs.edu/mba/studentlife/divclassprofile.html&lt;/a>. It says 24% of current Class of 2007 students were business undergrads. Work experience, education, extra-curriculars, YOU - these things all contribute to whether an MBA program wants you. If you can put together a coherent reason for the key question (Why MBA?) then you are someone who could be considered by top schools.</p>

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<p>
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If you go to some low end school like University of Houston and they have both an economics and a business program, are you trying to argue that you'd be better off majoring in economics over business?

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<p>I am not arguing that one is better than the other. That's my whole point - that I don't think you can make a general statement one way or another. I believe it varies from school to school and thus has to be taken on a case-by-case situation. At some schools, business may be better than economics. At others, economics may be better than business. </p>

<p>I agree with you that business classes are probably more pragmatically useful than are economics classes. But the countervailing phenomenom is that many schools have business programs that are rather well-known, at least within their region, for housing the rather unstudious and least academically capable students. That's why I keep bringing up football as a topic - for the fact is, division 1-A football players will disproportionately major in business than in economics, almost certainly because business tends to be infamous as an easy creampuff major at their schools. I would also imagine that the regional employers know that, which is why they may shy away from hiring people who majored in business. </p>

<p>In, I distinctly remember how a few years ago, one of my friend's who works in HR for a large company said that her company will no longer hire business grads from a certain local school for the simple reason that the ones they ever hired in the past turned out to be conspicuously lazy. The company decided they'd rather hire people who graduated from other majors at the school in order to avoid the problem of laziness. Let's be perfectly honest. Some business programs are notoriously 'soft' in that students can graduate while doing very little work. </p>

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You say that I'm looking too much at the top business schools but maybe you're not focusing enough on the kinds of jobs people get from the lower end business schools. They're going to be jobs that will prefer business majors over liberal arts majors.

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<p>No, I think you're overlooking the other aspects of what a school is all about. The truth is, most business jobs are really not that hard to do, in that, it wouldn't take a hard-working person much time to train to learn what they need to know to do the job. What you can't train is a work ethic. Either a person is hard-working, or he isn't. And the fact is, sadly, a lot of business majors at the low-end schools simply aren't hard-working. In fact, that's why a lot of them chose to become business majors - because the sad truth is that many business programs, especially at the low-end schools, are easy.</p>

<p>And that's the real crux of the matter right there. The truth is, all of this really boils down to signals you are sending to the market. Nobody really knows how good of an employee you are going to be, which is why they have to rely on market signals. If you major in economics, then while your education may not be completely applicable to a business job, you're signalling to the market that, if nothing else, at least you're not lazy. However, if you're a business major from that same school, employers can't be so sure. Like I said, my friend works for an employer who's been burned in the past by lazy business majors.</p>

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<p>Sakky's opinions and experiences reflect my impressions of the business world too. There are definite stratas of majors in terms of 'degree of difficulty', and business is near the bottom, right around sociology and film studies.</p>

<p>Entering the real world, there is very little that applies directly to the duties of a student's future job that a business major would know, that a, say, economics student with a halfway decent internship wouldn't know. Let's be frank ... I've seen the (typical) courses and syllabi, texts, etc. Most of it is common sense and the rest wouldn't fill half a textbook.</p>