Wharton - Mythbusters

platorepublic · February 1, 2011, 9:18pm

Myth 12 : Wharton kids are only in it for the money, more so than HYPSM kids anyways.

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Kafka already touched on this, but I think I’ll expand on it.

You mentioned the fact that you think that people who go into finance from Wharton are doing it for the money as opposed to HYPSM kids. As Kafka pointed out, the reverse is probably more accurate. Wharton kids by definition are truly passionate about business, so passionate in fact that they choose to study it for four years under the best business minds in the country. Believe it or not, some people may find stochastic calculus, black scholes theorem, and fat tail statistical distribution, and things of that nature interesting.

Some people treat restructuring a company as an academic endeavor, a puzzle to be solved. They approach stock trading as a game of wits, they approach consulting as a lawyer would a difficult case, they approach founding their own startup or funding it as a fulfilling challenge. The point is, Whartonites are truly passionate about the actual business process, which is why they go through the pains to learn it when they do when they could be studying art history (which some do in tandem to pursuing their main interest in finance). The one word that pops in my mind when I describe their approach to business is passion. That’s why they are so driven. Money is a secondary, but I won’t lie, important consideration for them. Given the fact that half of Wharton’s curriculum is in the liberal arts, they still are able to explore other subjects of their interest and expand their minds, but they also have the advantage of exploring what they are truly passionate about in an academic setting. Studying business as an undergrad before you go into the real world will allow you to have a better learning experience when at your respective firm because you have an intuition for things and grasp concepts deeply (something you will probably get after an MBA), the point being, you make the most of your analyst years and that will likely lead to a better experience with whatever you plan to do after them.

Contrast that with the HYPSM kid who enters college deeply engrossed in ancient Japanese poetry. He breathes it, lives it, masters it. Poetry is his all. Then, come senior or junior year, he is struck with the realization that if he pursues his true passion, poetry, he’ll probably realistically end up earning 40 thousand dollars a year, perhaps he can escape to academia if he is lucky. Given that bleak scenario, the high paying world of finance seems appealing enough, with all the prestige, salary and perks that come with it. So this HYPSM kid abandons their original aspiration and true passion and instead lands a banking job, a job that they may or may not be truly passionate about due to financial security finance brings, a job that they probably know very little - if anything- about, save for the salary. In this case, money was the principal factor that drove him into a field that he believes “can be learned in a few weeks” and holds little interest to him other than the pay check. What drives such a person but survival? To me, that’s someone who is not truly happy. They should never have gone into finance in the first place. That’s someone who is primarily driven by money, not passion. That is sad in my eyes.

I know that this is a very specific case and it is not true of all HYPSM kids as I personally know some who have been interning in finance since the summer before college - though they are few and far in between - I do believe that the scenario I outlined is not too uncommon as to be irrelevant, in fact, it is probably the norm.

That’s the difference between Wharton and HYPSM, passion.

So I think, my friend, you own argument works against you.

Thanks Wikiman. :)

ezbreezy · February 2, 2011, 10:58am

Yes. But I did not rule out that HYPSM students could also be going into finance for the same reasons. The difference is that only a small minority of HYPSM students actually go into finance and with much forethought after several years of college whereas all Wharton kids decide to go into finance when they are still teenagers who should be exploring their options instead of committing to a career before they’ve even stepped onto their college campus.

Isn’t this the kind of “appeal to authority” of which you accused me?

Let’s conduct a thought experiment, shall we? Imagine a counter-factual situation in which finance, banking and consulting jobs paid as much (or as little) as teaching or social work. Would Whartonites still be as “truly passionate about business”? Would they still find stochastic calculus, black scholes theorem and fat tail statistical distribution as academically “interesting”? Would they bother attending Wharton and studying these things in the first place? Be serious. Both you and I know the answer to these questions. Hence, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for us to conclude that Whartonites do what they do for the $$$.

The passion wouldn’t be there if not for the lure of money. Stop romanticizing.

If finance is sufficiently intellectually stimulating (as you and other Whartonites suggest), why do you need plain old liberal arts to “expand your mind”?? And if finance is so darn difficult and academically fulfilling, why does Wharton need to pad 50% of your curriculum with these liberal arts??

Contrast that with the HYPSM kid who enters college deeply engrossed in ancient Japanese poetry. He breathes it, lives it, masters it. Poetry is his all. Then, come senior or junior year, he is struck with the realization that if he pursues his true passion, poetry, he’ll probably realistically end up earning 40 thousand dollars a year, perhaps he can escape to academia if he is lucky. Given that bleak scenario, the high paying world of finance seems appealing enough, with all the prestige, salary and perks that come with it. So this HYPSM kid abandons their original aspiration and true passion and instead lands a banking job, a job that they may or may not be truly passionate about due to financial security finance brings, a job that they probably know very little - if anything- about, save for the salary.

This is sort of a strawman argument, but I’ll bite. It’s doubtful that a HYPSM student would so casually enter an occupation that they know that little about. But at least they have had several years of college to explore what it is that they want to do and weigh the costs and benefits of this or that job choice. But Whartonites don’t have this opportunity for exploration. As a matter of fact, they are committing to a career while they are still teenagers. I don’t care how informed they are, but there is no way a 17 year old could fully understanding the ramifications of their career decision, let alone what that career exactly entails.

ezbreezy · February 2, 2011, 11:52am

Both you and kafkareborn committed the 1st major fallacy. In fact, I probably would’ve never posted in this thread had kafkareborn not appealed to (Gladwell’s) authority. I did not commit the 2nd fallacy. I said that Gladwell’s book is garbage, not him personally.

That’s because his arguments are based on cherry picked anecdotal opinions.

Practice is important, but general intelligence is much, much more important. While you Whartonites are looking at the ins and outs of the black scholes theorem, the HYPSM students aren’t exactly twiddling their thumbs. They’re sharpening their minds. And given that I believe theoretical education trumps practical education, the HYPSM students are doing a better job of it.

This strikes me as a very odd example. The overwhelming majority of financiers make their money not by making markets more efficient but in fact by taking advantage of market inefficiencies (via arbitrage and what not) that the person on Main Street do not see and/or cannot do anything about. Whatever “value” financiers and traders create for society is incidental to the fact that they do what they do for the money. Anything else is just icing on the cake.

And what about people like the founders of HP, G00gle, Yah00, etc.? They certainly earned billions and created immense value for society. But they all happened to have studied engineering, which was what they were passionate about. They created what they did out their own interest and iniative and probably had no inkling that their projects would someday amass any, let alone great wealth. Money wasn’t their carrot on a stick. As far as I know, none of them even took a single business or finance course before they founded their companies. That’s why I think a business education/finance curriculum is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Don’t you mean TWO years instead of four? Didn’t you say that half of the Wharton education is liberal arts?

Like I hinted at earlier, there is no point.

My point is that a Wharton education is neither necessary nor sufficient for people who actually think that finance and business are useful pursuits. That there is no one way or the best path to becoming a successful businessperson. That the liberal arts can lead you there as well and IMNSHO lead you there better.

ezbreezy · February 2, 2011, 12:20pm

But you’re operating under the assumption that finance jobs are inherently better than non-finance jobs. I disagree.

What do you think makes more of an impact on the world? G00gle or the companies that G00gle buys out?

Are you sure you want to use a former white collar criminal/convict to extol the virtues of Wharton? Milken was very “innovative” in breaking securities law. I’ll give you that.

platorepublic · February 2, 2011, 2:20pm

Well that was a torrent, but I can see some serious flaws in your arguments.

First of all, your entire argument seems to be a debate over weather going into finance is as useful as going into tech, engineering, becoming a doctor, or whatever. I think the main point this argument is demonstrating is that if you want to go into finance, Wharton will be better for you than HYPSM. You also seem to suggest that the finance industry itself is not as fulfilling or useful as other sectors like technology. Correct me if I am mis-characterizing your position.

First of all, you are wrong to suggest that the finance industry does not provide value to society, just because the common man cannot see it, does not mean it does not exist. Whatever the motivations of money managers, the mere fact that the are removing market inefficiencies (hence making the market more efficient, duh, it is two ways of saying the same thing), they add tremendous value to society. Every single company you talked about from Faceboook to Google to Microsoft needed an injection of capital to get them to where they are today. Without the financial industry, it would have been much more difficult for these companies to grow as quickly as they did or to run as smoothly as they did. The financial expertise that they provided has proven very valuable, why else would Seregy brin need an entire business unit to help google become what it is today? Why does Facebook need Yuri Milner’s money now ? The allocation of capital is the cornerstone of America’s transcendence, all economists know that greed motivates people, there is no doubt about that, but through greed and their own self-interest, immense value is created. So you are wrong there.

Secondly, let us take a look at all the companies you mentioned. Almost without exception, the founders of these companies LEFT their liberal arts school half way through if not before to concentrate on their true passions - for them it was the tech sphere for us it is finance. They knew going into college where their interests lay and they focused on them a la Gladwell. Clearly they felt that what they were getting out of their liberal arts was not worth forgoing concentrating on their passions, so they left and specialized in their passions - exactly what I am recommending. They needed to put the time in to perfect their skills, not only did they know what they were going to get into as high school students, they knew it long before that, in almost every case. Buffett started as a kid. Each and every one of them put their 10, 000 hours in. My contention is that if your passion is finance or something business related, Wharton helps you do that better than anywhere else.

Unlike you, I did not commit the fallacy of appealing to authority I just attributed an ARGUMENT an authority made, Gladwell, to that individual and then went onto discuss the merits of that argument as applied to the situation I was describing. So even though they may have gone to HYPSM, the path they followed is far more reminiscent of the Wharton ideology rather than the HYPSM one. So your argument supports my argument really.

Now let us look at your hypothetical scenario where a finance job pays as much as a teaching job or social work. I never denied that money plays a part in a Wharton kids’ choices, but I do believe that a Wharton kid is far more inclined to enter finance because they are actually interested in finance itself and not merely the money they can make. If trading payed me 40 k and I had to choose between that and teaching biology, you suppose I would choose teaching, you would be wrong. See, what you cannot understand is that I, and many Whartonites like me, actually ENJOY working in finance, trading, making markets more efficient, increasing the value of a company, reorganizing companies, replacing bad management, seeing companies that could work well together and bringing them together. It is what we are passionate about, so yes, though the money is a huge plus, I would still do it whether the money was there or not, that’s why I chose to come to Wharton to study finance when I could easily have been studying philosophy at Stanford instead, because finance is my passion. This was precisely my point, the same is probably not true of the HYPSM kid who choses to enter finance not because they are interested in it as their interests lie in whatever they studied in college, but because it pays more. If it paid the same as their true passion, then I doubt they would still follow the same path. Again, your arguments support my premise.

Furthermore, you make the mistake of assuming that a Whartonite is stuck with finance and cannot change paths - read myth 1 it refutes your claim entirely. A Whartonite can enter pretty much any field a HYPSM kid can, with the possible exception of specialized fields like engineering, but even that’s not true for all Whartonites given programs like M&T. Furthermore, I never said a liberal arts education is useless, it has its uses, which is why Whartonites get both, the difference being that the Wharton curriculum allows them to focus on their passions earlier and get to their 10 k hours of practice in earlier than would otherwise be possible.

You mention the fact that raw intelligence is just as important as practice. Fact of the matter is Wharton kids are just as smart as HYPSM kids so that is a non issue. You also make the assumption that studying things like financial theory do not sharpen the mind equally well, that would be incorrect.

I suppose the main thrust of my argument is this:

If you have a passion, pursue it fully. Learn as much as you can about it as early as you can like Buffett, Gates, Zuckerberg, all of whom were deeply involved in what they ended up doing long term before college and concentrated the early years of their college careers on their pursuits. Engross yourself in your passion and it will take you far.

travelbug · February 2, 2011, 2:56pm

@ezbreezy-

I think you’ve been laboring under the delusion that Wharton only enrolls students who want careers in finance; all of your posts indicate that a Wharton degree, to you, is synonymous with a career in banking, hedge-funding, or the like. In fact, Wharton offers many more than just one undergraduate concentration, and while it may be true that a majority of Whartonites matriculate with the intention of studying finance, many others do not. I, for one, could not be less interested in pursuing a finance concentration. Wharton also produces leaders in marketing, health care administration, human resources, general management, and other business disciplines.

Additionally, you’ve written that “It’s doubtful that a HYPSM student would so casually enter an occupation that they know that little about. But at least they have had several years of college to explore what it is that they want to do and weigh the costs and benefits of this or that job choice. But Whartonites don’t have this opportunity for exploration. As a matter of fact, they are committing to a career while they are still teenagers. I don’t care how informed they are, but there is no way a 17 year old could fully understanding the ramifications of their career decision, let alone what that career exactly entails.”

I take issue with several of your points here. First, what makes an MIT student so different from a Whartonite? While it may be true that HYPS students choose their respective schools because they wish to pursue a theoretical education rather than a practical one, MIT students almost certainly choose MIT for the same reasons a Whartonite chooses Wharton. Wharton students want business; MIT students are inclined toward careers in math, science and engineering. And Wharton students are at least exposed to the theoretical education you so value through Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences; MIT’s humanities education, meanwhile, is not reknowned by any stretch of the imagination. If I were you, I’d be more mindful of making such broad generalizations. If Whartonites “casually” choose their career paths, then MIT students do, too.

More to the point, though, is my issue- again- with your insinuation that matriculation to Wharton is the equivalent of signing on to a life of finance. Whartonites in fact do have just as much “opportunity for exploration” as HYPS students, and perhaps more than MIT students. I’ll reiterate the fact that Whartonites not only have multiple business concentrations to choose from, but also have access to a well-respected school of arts and sciences. Something like 30% of Wharton undergrads also graduate with a degree from one of Penn’s three other undergraduate schools. That kind of “opportunity for exploration”- the opportunity to study two disciplines and gain two degrees in four years- is definitely not available at HYPS.

I think everyone is entitled to an opinion, ezbreezy, but please be sure that you are better informed the next time you decide to attack someone else’s. Your generalizations read as ignorance.

ezbreezy · February 2, 2011, 5:20pm

For your sake, I’ll restate my position:

I am not necessarily saying that the finance industry does not provide value. My point is that its value is not intrinsic, but derivative. What I mean is that financiers fund the creators of products, but they don’t actually create anything themselves. They live off other people’s creations. Admittedly, the financial industry has its value, but its value is entirely based on the usefulness of whatever tangible (or sometimes not so tangible) things it happens to fund.

I mentioned HP, G00gle, Yah00 and Faceb00k. Hewlett & Packard and Yang finished their undergraduate degrees at Stanford. Brin and Page finished their undergraduate degrees at Maryland and Michigan, respectively. In fact, they came up with the idea for G00gle while they were working on a PhD project at Stanford. Zuckerberg did leave Harvard early though.

I was referring to your appeal to kafkareborn qua authority.

Nope, I wouldn’t suppose this. I figured you’d try to find a job that paid more than $40K.

It’s easy for you to say this because in reality the money IS there. Lots of people say that they’d do this or that until they actually have to do it.

And if Whartonites are truly as passionate about finance as you say they are (regardless of whether they make a lot of money or not), then why do they so rarely end up getting PhDs in finance? Why do all but a small minority stop pursuing their academic interests as soon as they start rolling in the dough?

Sure, Whartonites can change paths. But it’s not as easy as it seems. For example, if a Whartonite decided that s/he no longer wanted to do business, s/he’d have to transfer (at least internally). At HYPS, one can major in whatever one wants whenever one wants. I don’t know as much about MIT in terms of how easy (or not) Sloan students can change their majors.

Isn’t Wharton filled disproportionately with legacies, recruited athletes and development admits?

ezbreezy · February 2, 2011, 5:43pm

At the end of the day, they are all business degrees.

STEM fields are much more broadly theoretical than business.

You’re correct…to a certain degree. MIT’s humanities are, unfortunately, overshadowed by their STEM fields. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that MIT’s liberal arts as a whole are sub-standard in any way. As a matter of fact, MIT is extremely strong in the social sciences. For example, MIT has stronger linguistic, poli-sci and economic programs than Penn.

While Whartonites may have the opportunity for exploration, the fact of the matter is that they don’t actually take advantage of these opportunities (assuming they exist to the extent that you say they do). As I stated earlier, very few Whartonites pursue advanced education in finance or business-related disciplines such as economics or statistics, let alone other non-related fields of study.

I’ll reiterate that at the end of the day, it’s still the same undergraduate business degree (i.e. what Wharton calls a B.S. in economics that really isn’t economics).

platorepublic · February 2, 2011, 6:24pm

damn, i just wrote a lengthy response to you but my computer messed up. I can’t believe I am retyping this whole thing out again.

Basically, if you take a look at all the people you mentioned, they have a few things in common:

They started young, long before college and knew they had a passion for a particular field.
They studied that field in college and spent a lot of time working on what they would eventually become successful at.
They pursued practical degrees at the area that they specialized.
put in that golden 10k hours

Page: Parents where computer science profs. started when young, knew what he wanted to do. Got a non-HYPSM degree in CS, masters in CS.

Brin: Father was a math prof. Studied math and CS in college (non-HYPSM), useful for the algos he would build at google

zuckerberg and gates: started with computers when young, focused on that, studied that in college as well, dropped out of harvard half way to focus on their passions.

HP guys: Electrical engineering in stanford, started when young. EE came in useful for their computers. One of them only got into stanford “as a favor to his father” at least that is the connotation

Yang: CS at Stanford started working on sites while there.

Jobs: dropped out of Reed, precisely so he could focus on the things he was interested in.

Actually, what this shows you is that you can go to any school, even not so great ones (Reed, Maryland, Michigan, drop out) etc and still be wildly successful, all you have to do is focus on what you are interested in. Your examples illustrate the point that you don’t need HYPSM. So whatever way are able to enthrall yourself in your field of interest, do that. In fact, all of these guys are from H and S, I can think of one or two from P, but none from Yale and few from MIT. Is that a coincidence considering that Harvard and Stanford have the best computer science programs in the country ? All the students at these places are equal, but H and S allows you to be enthralled in your field with the best people from that field (CS) better than the others, hence their dominance over YPM and the great amount of students from random schools who also enthralled themselves in their field.

The point being the specialization and studying what you are passionate in go a bloody long way in making you successful. If you are into CS go for that, if finance/ business/ trading/ go for that. That’s the principal point I was getting across, you do not become great by accident, it takes practice. Many of the guys you mention did not even get into/ attend HYPSM schools. They had a passion and ran with it and focused all their energy into it. Intelligence was obviously there, but passion was what really mattered.

Secondly, your lack of knowledge about Wharton is quite shocking, but you don’t go here and that’s the point of this forum so it’s all good. If you read the very first myth on here you can see that several Whartonites actually DO pursue Harvard med, Yale law, Columbia law etc, and you absolutely do not need to transfer out of Wharton to do it. Myth one points out that a Whartonite that goes onto a field in law etc, will have both skill sets which is bloody useful. For god’s sake, a supreme court justice (Brennan) graduated from Wharton as did a potential presidential candidate for 2012- Huntsman. You’re regurgitating something that has already been proven to be false with actual evidence. As for Whartonites not taking advantage of their opportunities ? That’s just wrong and Myth one proves that. Furthermore, you just asserted that, you have no way to know if that is true at all as you have no or little exposure to Wharton, I assume. The facts disagree with you my friend.

The reason Wharton kids go into finance as opposed to getting PHD’s in finance is because they find interest in the application of the things they learn more appealing. In the same way that a large chunk of pre-meds do not go onto get PHD’s in biology, they want to practice medicine not teach eat. That was probably your poorest argument yet.

Lastly, Whartonites are every bit as smart as HYPSM kids and have similar amounts of all the other stuff you mentioned as HYPSM schools, with one possible exception - developmental candidates. Many billionaires, from Ruimin in China to Mittal and Ambani in India etc send their kids to Wharton because they believe in the value of the undergraduate business education. I know of three such kids in my grade, they are every bit as smart as the rest of the class. But, the value of networking with such people is obviously immense, being smart only goes so far, knowing the right people helps tremendously. But int terms of intellectual horsepower, Wharton is absolutely on par, that is just a fact. I know several of my friends that turned down HYPSM to be here and they seems just as smart as everyone else. but let us entertain your foolish notion that that is not the case for a moment, if you as an individual are as smart as the HYPSM kids, then having that network is to your advantage because you are just as smart but you also have a more powerful network.

Read through all the myths if you are really that interested and the responses to them. It seems like you didn’t as you are rehashing the same things we hear from HYPSM kids all the time, mostly out of ignorance.

TheWikiMan · February 2, 2011, 6:28pm

Ok, you aren’t necessarily making actual arguments anymore, merely refuting valid points with the simple fact that you disagree, which really isn’t an argument.

For example.

People have said that Wharton kids would still be interested in finance even if there was a pay cut, because they are passionate about it. Your counter argument simply is “no, I don’t think that is the case”, that doesn’t counter the point that Wharton kids can have passion without the pay.

Secondly, you simply cannot generalize 20 concentrations into “its still a business degree”. marketing and management employ different skill sets than finance and statistics, there are differences that do matter.

Where are you coming up with the fact that Whartonites don’t explore their options, have you been there, do you have any actual experience to say that most Wharton kids simply grind through the liberal arts and focus on finance, I don’t think so.

As to your point on Wharton kids not pursuing graduate studies in finance, I would argue that other fields lend themselves more to graduate studies due to the depth of those fields. And, a Wharton undergraduate education rivals a graduate education in business, many of the courses at wharton have both MBA’s and undergrads.

Your assumption that most wharton kids are developmental, legacy, or athletic is complete horse hockey, and even if it were to be true, most of these prestigious institutions are the same in that regard, so its a moot point. And don’t simply write off a legacy as not smart, or an athletic recruit.

One more thing I don’t get about your argument is, you say a Wharton education is not sufficient or necessary, thats an inherent contradiction, you could say that a wharton education is not sufficient for the field, or that its not necessary, but not both.

Again, I reiterate, you are making a lot of baseless arguments, especially the overarching assumptions that all Wharton kids are in it for the money, and that finance and business are not difficult fields. Unless you can personally attest to these things, you can’t make the claims, there are people on here that actually go to the school stating that those assumptions are not true.

platorepublic · February 2, 2011, 6:40pm

Great post wikiman, ha you should join the IAA here.

I initially posted this in my message that got deleted, I’ll just post it here instead.

It is not a mistake that Page and Brin came up with google when they where most engrossed in CS, and where surrounding themselves with it during their PHD programs - the equivalent of what Wharton kids do considering a Wharton undergraduate degree is as thorough as a MBA program.

TheWikiMan · February 2, 2011, 7:35pm

Is IAA the debate of choice at Penn, I have been doing debate since middle school, and looked into the options at Penn, the only thing I found was Parliamentary Debate, is that the same?

platorepublic · February 2, 2011, 7:51pm

Well there IAA organizes and participates in model UN conferences, which is slightly different to debate as I am sure you are aware, but I prefer it.

[The</a> International Affairs Association of the University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.penniaa.com/]The”>http://www.penniaa.com/)

I think parliamentary debate is more or less what is offered on that front, but that is the standard isn’t it? Didn’t you do parli in highschool ? I will ask a few of my friends that are more involved. I used to debate in highschool, but I am pre-occupied with volunteer work and a business idea I have at the moment so I don’t have as much time, I may consider doing it next year though.

platorepublic · February 2, 2011, 7:55pm

Oh, one more thing. Ezbreezy, you insinuated that Whartonites do not learn to think critically. You also insinuate that they don’t know how to debate and don’t have the intellectual prowess of a HYPSM kid. Well, you’re a HYPSM kid and we’re Whartonites; I think the readers of this thread can decide if we Whartonites are in fact capable of debate, critical thinking, and if we posses the same intellectual prowess as HYPSM kids. You suggest a Wharton education cannot provide these things, we argue otherwise.

TheWikiMan · February 2, 2011, 8:00pm

No I have absolutely no experience with Parli debate, I have done Lincoln-Douglas Debate for all of high school, I read up on the format of Parli, and it is kind of different. And thanks for asking your friends, I really am interested in continuing with that.

greenexcess · February 3, 2011, 4:19pm

wharton and penn are the ****, all other HYPSM are full of awkward introverted nerds, if anyone opines the contrary they can go ahead and copulate with a donkey.

kafkareborn · February 3, 2011, 5:27pm

I know you did that in jest, but that’s not true, nor is it what this thread is about. This thread was meant to discuss common misconceptions people may have had about Wharton, not to demean any other school, something that was not done here. If you don’t agree, you’re free to post, but if we think that someone is spreading misinformation on a thread meant to combat it, obviously we’ll counter post. If you actually bother to read through the arguments made, you’ll see that that is the case. We’re trying to help inform prospective students, that’s all.

travelbug · February 3, 2011, 5:52pm

@WikiMan- Thank you for your most recent rebuttal post to ezbreezy! It said everything I would’ve wanted to!

ezbreezy · February 3, 2011, 7:27pm

Just for the record, I did not say this. Here is what I said verbatim:

What I am trying to say is that if a Whartonite decides to drop their intentions to pursue their B.S. in (business) economics, they’d have to file an internal transfer into the arts & sciences college. Or transfer out of Wharton/Penn altogether. At HYPS, students can drop or change their majors at any time for any reason.

I also understand that some Whartonites do explore options and go into non-business related fields. But what percentage actually do so? Saying that one former Whartonite (Brennan) ended up being a Supreme Court Justice tells me very little. For one thing, he is probably not at all representative of the typical Whartonite. Not to mention, he was nominated by the Eisenhower administration!!! Surely, you can come up with more recent and/or relevant examples.

If you can provide a percentage of current Whartonites who end up pursuing law or medicine (or other non-business related fields), that would be more helpful and informative.

ezbreezy · February 3, 2011, 7:44pm

I understand that the Wharton undergraduate business degree consists of multiple concentrations that are not exactly the same. But again, it is still ONE and ONLY ONE degree. Contrary to travelbug’s analogy, the Wharton business degree is not nearly as broad as a degree in any of the STEM fields at MIT (or elsewhere). Business/finance only covers so much; different concentrations (marketing vs. management) still fall under the same umbrella. But a degree in math or physics is completely different than, say, a degree in biology or chemistry. Travelbug tries to compare the two, but it’s like comparing different types of fruits to completely different food groups.

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