<p>I am an undergraduate business administration major and I am debating on whether I want to concentrate on accounting or finance classes.
Of the two, which provides better job prospects, better pay, more benefits, etc.</p>
<p>i too would like to know...</p>
<p>Oh crap, here starts another ibanking thread....</p>
<p>accounting is generally viewed as a tougher major but i find it less interesting. there are many class overlaps between the two, though</p>
<p>Concentrate on both</p>
<p>based off of not hearing about anyone with an accounting degree, I would say finance. as for the top jobs(like CEOs), most have either a degree in marketing or finance</p>
<p>^^huh? how do you know that?</p>
<p>Donald Trump: BS Economics (finance concentration), Wharton School of Business</p>
<p>More CEOs to come later.</p>
<p>a CEO(GE) told me</p>
<p>Well, I would argue that your CEO of GE buddy is stating his opinion, because there is no way to actually know that without seeing some stats somewhere.</p>
<p>i'd venture to say that a ceo of ge would know... especially the previous one</p>
<p>I appreciate everybody's input.
Are there any resources that can help us figure this out?</p>
<p>he was just talking about fortune 500 companies too, what he said was that roughly 60% of CEOs either a finance or marketing degree(he did marketing). and to add on to that, the next few people up in the hierarchy all studied finance</p>
<p>a more important question: what are the major differences in jobs available to accounting majors vs finance, and which would you prefer to do more.</p>
<p>If you want to work for a typical Fortune 500 company and become a controller or CFO, accounting is better. CFOs have an accounting background and generally are CPAs. However, if you want to work for an investment bank, or become a real financial analyst (I say this because many companies call their accountants finance analysts) then major in finance.</p>
<p>Was the Marketing/Finance concentration done at the Undergrad level or the grad level?</p>
<p>undergraduate. I just haven't heard of anyone taking accounting to know much about it. Finance is by far the most popular(at least at Wharton, with at least 60%). Here is what the wharton site says about each "Many students find the accounting concentration to be useful preparation for careers in consulting, investment banking, general management, public accounting, and securities analysis." and "Students who take this concentration(finance) often pursue careers in consulting in money management, commercial or investment banking, or become internal financial managers for corporations."</p>
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he was just talking about fortune 500 companies too
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<p>Ok, so he was talking about 500 companies, of which a person has about as much of a chance of being CEO as they do winning the $400M lottery. If you were to gather the information on all CEOs across the world in all companies, i'm sure that marketing and finance majors would fall VERY short of 60% of the pie.</p>
<p>Some of you guys make some strange conclusions from the info you get...</p>
<p>First, your undergraduate degree has little to do with becoming a CEO. People reach that position for many reasons--mostly due to previous experience and politics. Your undergrad degree has nothing to do with it. Your job experience does--and people with finance degrees regularly go into marketing and people with accounting degree regularly go into finance.</p>
<p>Second, of course most people who have business undergrad degrees concentrated in finance--that is the most popular business concentration at most universities.</p>
<p>Third, the Fortune 500 is a very small slice of the pie. Even if you looked at all public companies, that is still a very small group. The vast majority of the companies are private. When you look at just public companies, you're going to find a larger proportion of finance/econ backgrounds since one of upper management's primary concerns is major financing decisions (dividends, stock buybacks, etc.). </p>
<p>Why is being a CEO the top job in some of your eyes? What about Big 4 partners? Almost all of them studied accounting and I would certainly consider them as being rather successful.</p>
<p>Accounting is a great degree for entreprenuership as well, IMO. Understanding how to make a business successful from the balance sheet gives you a little advantage when it comes to executing business decisions. Also being able to take the entire picture and analyze where the long-term problem areas are allows a business owner to make proper adjustments before their business goes belly up.</p>