<p>What do you think? Is it better to major in Business Administration or Economics for your undergraduate degree?</p>
<p>I think it’s better to major in Business Admin.</p>
<p>However, I think within Business Admin, it’s better to major in MIS, Finance, or Accounting, and then minor in Econ, Int’l B, or some other complementary program. It also helps to be strong in a second (or third) language :)</p>
<p>It depends on what you want. </p>
<p>Certainly, if research in economics is among your possible career choices, the economics major would be the better choice. Economics may also be the better choice for those who plan careers in government service.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you are sure that you want to go into the business world after graduation, the business administration major may be better – although many economics majors choose this path, too, and get an MBA at some point to strengthen their credentials.</p>
<p>If you are going on to get an MBA or go to law school then an Econ major would be a great option. But if you want to have marketable skills after completing your 4 years then you should consider an accounting degree with an econ minor. An econ degree will help shape the way you approach problem solving and your business future will greatly benefit from this skill. Either way you will have to take macro and micro econ your first year.</p>
<p>Do you have a preference? Probably that’s the better choice for you.
Which option has a better reputation? Call HR of organizations/companies you would like to work for and ask.</p>
<p>It depends on what you want to do with it. Can you do both? I started as an accounting major and then added an econ/finance major. At my school, it wasn’t that many extra credits because the gen ed and general business requirements for both majors were the same. By taking an extra course or two a semester I was able to easily finish on time. If you have AP credits you could probably do it without loading up each semester. I ended up going to law school, but even though I never worked in accounting, economics or finance, I found that my undergrad background was very useful for corporate law.</p>
<p>I should add to my post #2</p>
<p>You really need to look at the programs offered at your possible business schools. Some B schools offer combine programs or customized programs that let you design a program that’s best for you.</p>
<p>I am going to give you my reaction, but I want you to take it with a grain of salt. I am, honestly, an elitist, and this is an elitist perspective. It may not apply to your circumstances.</p>
<p>One of the real values that I see in a good college education is that your major exposes you to depth in some field or another – it almost doesn’t matter which one. No one learns are real academic discipline as an undergraduate, but what everyone should learn is how much there is to learn if you look closely enough at anything (or put another way how much you don’t know already). I believe that doing that well requires that you take some related fairly advanced courses in a focused field.</p>
<p>I do not believe that college is for acquiring marketable skills, except perhaps in specific quasi-professional programs (nursing, accounting, engineering, teaching) – and even there, the educational goal is to get the licensing credential you need in order to receive further on-the-job training. No one is expected to come out of college prepared to do a real-world job on his own. College is more about preparing yourself to learn from experience, and demonstrating your potential to others.</p>
<p>Therefore, I hate pseudo-majors like “Business Administration”. Business Administration isn’t a discipline, it’s a catch-all of a bunch of different disciplines as they relate to business problems. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I believe (and maybe I’m wrong, it’s not like I have studied every college’s BusAdmin requirements) that in Business Administration you essentially get a smattering of introductory courses in the relevant fields, like economics, psychology, sociology, statistics, writing, but you don’t ever really get to glimpse the depths of any of them. Furthermore, because in many cases the material has been pre-digested for you to make it more relevant to business problems, you lose some opportunities for critical thinking, for figuring out how to take an insight from one context and apply it to another.</p>
<p>Economics is one of the principal tools of analysis in business, but it is not synonymous with business. It is a real academic field, one that you can’t learn in four undergraduate years, but one in which you can learn a lot in four undergraduate years. And encounter stuff that is really, really hard – something I’m skeptical that Business Administration provides. That’s what education is about for me.</p>
<p>Also, I do not believe that in the world an undergraduate Business degree substitutes for an MBA. It’s not a question of getting a BusAdmin bachelor’s vs. majoring in something else then getting an MBA. If you are in a field where an MBA is the standard credential, you will have to get that anyway (or something equivalent). If you are not in a field like that – say, you are an entrepreneur – then the question is what path gives you the best preparation to learn in the future. I also note that business managers I have really admired rarely have undergraduate, or even graduate, business training. The best have included two research physicists, a journalist, and a women’s studies major, who used their intellectual skills (and some in-house training) to become excellent managers.</p>
<p>I am in complete agreement with JHS. With a good foundation in math, econ, or any major from a liberal arts school, one could learn “Business Administration” on the job.</p>
<p>
This is key for me. Courses in finance and accounting they tell you exactly HOW to do something, one learns the mechanic in those classes. Those skills are useful at many entry positions right out of school. But later on in one’s career, the ability to analyze a problem, do risk assessment with different options, and come up with the best solution will be key. And it often is to “take an insight from one context and apply it to another.”</p>
<p>I feel that I am able to do what I do now because of my liberal arts education. It taught me to look at a problem from many different angles, and often there is not just one solution. To be able to taken in massive amount of information (data) and filter in only what’s necessary to make a sound business decision (or prove to your manager it is a sound decision) is a critical thinking skill that liberal arts education teaches us.</p>
<p>Although I agree completely with JHS and Oldfort, it must be acknowledged that for those who seek a career in business, it is harder to get that first job after college if you have a liberal arts degree – even one in economics – than if you have a degree in business administration or (even better, from the job hunter’s point of view) a degree in a specific business field, such as finance or accounting. </p>
<p>This would not matter much except for the current custom that people who go into MBA programs are expected to have several years of work experience before they get there. If, as used to be the case, substantial numbers of MBA students were fresh out of college, I would say that the liberal arts program is unquestionably superior. But with today’s “system,” there is a downside.</p>
<p>Do you want to work In business? or
Do you want to work With business? or
Do you want to work On business?</p>
<p>We are producing business people but none of them want to Make business.</p>
<p>The same with economic.</p>
<p>Econ is the no-brainer for long-term career prospects – the liberal arts degree is perceived better. Tkae a gander at the Law School thread on cc – many posters have quoted top law school deans as saying that undergrad biz is a negative on an app to their school. Or, look at the top B-schools (grad) – few of them offer an undergrad program, and there is a reason for that.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS as well. I would not stop my children from getting an undergrad business major if they so desired, but all else being equal, I wouldn’t encourage it either. And I’m someone who applied and got into Wharton, and turned it down for an economics major with a much more liberal arts focus. </p>
<p>Having said that, JHS is also right in that it’s somewhat of an elitist perspective. The upper middle class kid whose parents are going to be able to pay for grad school may be afford the luxury of an econ degree the way that a less-fortunate kid, who’s got to get out there and work, might not.</p>
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<p>I don’t think the two are so distinct. When my kids were looking for summer jobs, nearly every ad said biz or econ major; thus, I believe that both majors readily find jobs after four years – at least a LOT more readily than a Lt major.</p>
<p>I’m a business school prof. I completely agree with JHS and Oldfort. I actually can’t think of a single colleague who would encourage their child to get an undergraduate in business for the reasons stated. But then again we are academics…and so we tend to view university education as a mind-developing broad experience, rather than as job skills training. There are plenty of pragmatic minded reasons why students and their families seek the latter rather than the former. </p>
<p>If one is going for an undergrad in business, I would at least strongly recommend taking full advantage of the breadth requirements and electives…unfortunately the same students attracted to business schools for undergrad tend to be the same ones that would prefer to ‘double major’ in two business disciplines rather than ‘waste’ their time with ‘useless’ courses like philosophy or english. Sigh.</p>
<p>My H who is a prof of Business Admin got his undergrad degree in aesthetic studies/creative writing before holding jobs in the business world, then getting an MBA + eventually the PhD. He’s a strong advocate of getting a broad education in the liberal arts as a good preparation for entering business. This is not an elitist view. The value of a liberal arts education is pretty much a given among members of the elite, who make sure that their kids get a head start on that broad liberal arts education by way of travel, reading, exposure to diversity, high schools with challenging courses, etc. Pizzagirl’s observation is a good one, leading into the question, what will the less-fortunate kid do? Well, follow the CC mantras: take the maximum advantage of challenging courses and other opportunities, develop a passion (or completely engaging activities, or whatever you want to call it). Work hard, try new things, keep learning, help other people.</p>
<p>Not every child is driven by a passion for the romantic poets (as I was) or middle eastern politics or ancient Mesopotamia. There are actually bright, highly motivated students who WANT to work in business or accounting, who might enjoy their English or history classes to an extent but who may be more focused on a practical endpoint to their college life. I’m not saying that one goal is more desireable or “better” than another. If “fit” is such a big deal for choosing a college, then it’s even more important when chosing a major or a career.</p>
<p>Signed, the flabbergasted parent of a D who just this week declared her accountancy major. Who’d have thunk?!</p>
<p>I have no problem, none, with people who want to work in business or accounting. I spend most of my life dealing with them. Moreover, even though I, like scout59, was mainly driven by a passion for Romantic poetry, I took all three accounting courses offered at my college, and thought they were very valuable (not least because they helped me get a job).</p>
<p>I don’t even have a problem with majoring in accountancy – it’s a noble profession (or could be), there’s a lot to learn, and it doesn’t really have separate professional schools. When I first got interested in accounting, a hot-stuff senior Econ major explained to me how accounting was a perfectly good point-of-entry into almost all of economics, and she was right. I don’t think it’s as general-studies-ish as Business Administration.</p>
<p>On the other hand, this is what the head of an Arthur Andersen (RIP) office told my Intro To Financial Accounting class – a speech that literally changed my life: “I’m not here to recruit CPAs. CPAs are a dime a dozen. Anyone with decent study skills can learn the rules and pass a CPA exam, and anyone who does that and owns a calculator can be a competent accountant. What I need, what’s in short supply, is someone who can have an idea, and can develop it and express it clearly, and then go into a boardroom full of people who are 30 years older than he is and impress the heck out of them. If you’re that kind of person, I really want to hire you, and I don’t care how good your accounting skills are now. I know how to train accountants, but I need people worth training.” (Note: reconstructed from memory, but that was the clear idea.)</p>
<p>What do you guys think of the new Entrepreneurial degree programs that are popping up at colleges across America? They are usually housed within the business schools, but include courses in venture capital funding, start up companies, product development/promotion, etc? It seems like it would be a good base for project management.</p>
<p>to follow-on JHS’s point: while accounting is a great field with long-term job prospects, a CPA can be earned online from a Community College in California…</p>