<p>I'm a rising junior at WashU's Olin business school. Now's the time to decide interns and a major, but I'm still uncertain about either.</p>
<p>I'm leaning towards an accounting major, but I want to work in consulting, banking, or some analyst role. I know it's broad but I just want any well-paid job that requires quantitative skills. For these, I wonder if a finance major is more suitable. I like accounting, but I doubt I want to work in accounting upon graduating because 1) duties are rather boring and tedious 2) I won't have a CPA yet.</p>
<p>I would choose finance but the only thing stopping me is that I still haven't taken a finance course yet and my time is running out. So idk if I can get all my requirements done in time. I haven't declared anything so is it worth pursuing finance? If however, I can get most of these jobs I want with an accounting major, then I don't think so.</p>
<p>Secondly, I really want to work at big corporate firms like the Big 4 or a bank. Or even consumer goods companies like P&G. but my GPA's around 3.3 ~ 3.4, but it probably subpar to say the least. i know it'll improve,but internship recruiting starts as soon as school begins.</p>
<p>However, I am working on a big project now. A credit-rating system that'll address issues involved with student loans such as cost of underwriting and high interest rates. I oversee this project's development and also working on a research study to assess its effectiveness. Hopefully it'll even prevent a future financial crisis. I think it's a good hook but idk how far it'll carry me. What do you think my shots at a big firm would be?</p>
<p>I am interning this summer at a really small accounting firm. It's tedious work but still good experience. Hopefully that'll look good for the Big 4?</p>
<p>also, for the record, the degree I'm acquiring is a BSBA, so really I'll be majoring in general business administration w/ a specialty in accounting. I'll know the basics of finance when I graduate because that's a required course all BSBAs must complete.</p>
<p>anyone care to help?</p>
<p>Paying $250,000+ for an undergrad accounting degree is just crazy, especially if you think accounting is boring and tedious. I seriously doubt that, as a rising junior, it is too late for you to major in finance or consulting (economics and strategy), since Olin requires 69 non-business credits to graduate, and you have spent only two years there. You go to a great school with a lot of name recognition; I would aim for finance or economics and strategy over accounting.</p>
<p>True, I’ve gotten a lot of non-business credits done but I’m still lacking in finance courses. I’ll be taking my first finance course this fall. </p>
<p>Assuming I do major in finance or econ & strategy. It’s already too late to improve my GPA for this upcoming internship recruiting. do you think that’ll put me in a bad spot? I did already take a business strategy class, a requirement for Econ & strategy. I severely underestimated the difficulty of that class and got a B-; the professor was rated to be rather hard. But the concept was REALLY interesting. And actually I only failed the first test; second one I did better, but not enough to make up for the first :/</p>
<p>And is consulting ONLY for Econ & strategy majors?</p>
<p>Also, can an econ & strategy major still work in banking? I mean it’s not finance but still very relevant.</p>
<p>There is nothing that you can do about the gpa you take into Fall recruiting this Fall. You can bear down and increase your gpa and try in the Spring recruiting period for a summer internship, but huge majority of good accounting, finance, and consulting internships will be filled in the Fall.</p>
<p>Another option is to do an internship in the Spring of your senior year, when you will have time to get some classes under your belt and raise your gpa. Then graduate in Fall. You could also apply for full time and internships in Fall 2013 to see if you can get a full time job beginning summer 2014. If you don’t get full time, then do a spring internship in 2014 and put off graduating till December 2014.</p>
<p>Your gpa is not all that low. Is there grade inflation at Olin? Deloitte Consulting recruits interns at Kelley School of Business with 3.0 minimum gpa to apply. They also accept applications for oncampus interviews from any major for Fall intern recruiting, as do Bain and BGC. Olin and Kelley are pretty comparable (I know Washington University is way better in most areas than Indiana University), but consulting is probably stronger at Olin. Olin’s class of 2011 stats show 17% of their new full time hires were in consulting, as opposed to 8% for Kelley; and Olin had average starting salary of ten thousand higher than Kelley, so demand for the consulting majors at Olin must be very strong.
<a href=“http://olincareers.wustl.edu/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDFs/WCC/EmploymentBSBA.pdf[/url]”>Error;
<a href=“https://ucso.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/ReportCenter/annual_reports/current.pdf[/url]”>https://ucso.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/ReportCenter/annual_reports/current.pdf</a></p>
<p>Consulting firms look at finance majors and a lot of finance jobs will take economic consulting majors. My son’s friend at Kelley is an economic consulting major (BEPP [Business Economics and Public Policy]) and got a finance position with General Mills. And like I said earlier, Deloitte Consulting, Bain, and BGC all recruit Kelley for any business major.</p>
<p>You could talk to your career services office about these issues.
<a href=“Weston Career Center | WashU Olin Business School”>Error;
<p>thanks. And yeah I know my GPA isn’t extremely great but I just hope it won’t hold me back TOO far. </p>
<p>But taking another semester doesn’t seem like a good option for me. I really want to graduate in 4 years. Also, I think accounting work culture seems rather tedious and boring, and I doubt I want to be doing that right after college or for a long time. And like you said, in my case, it’s probably preferable to choose econ & strategy or finance over accounting.</p>
<p>Also, I forgot to mention, I didn’t start off college in business; I switched into it after determining engineering wasn’t right for me in that I didn’t like it as much and was bad at it. So my GPA related to a business major would actually be 3.7+, better but probably not highly attractive.</p>
<p>Also, like you just pointed out, only a small percentage of Olin grads are in accounting and making around $50k tops. But for consulting, its around $70k. I guess that proves your point that choosing finance and econ & strategy seems preferable to accounting?</p>
<p>Also, if I did ever did want do accounting again, couldn’t I just take the CPA (assuming I had completed 150 credits) anytime?</p>
<p>Plus, couldn’t I also work in areas like cost accounting (requiring no CPA) even if I major in econ & strategy. I mean, I think there’s also a bunch of overlap among these areas of business and I am also familiar with cost accounting so it’s not going to be a complete surprise.</p>