<p>What major (or concentration specifically) is recommended for people who want to own their own company someday ?</p>
<p>Strategy, Finance, Management ....</p>
<p>Also Is having an Undergraduate Business Degree somehow better for a MBA (or business itself) ?</p>
<p>best bet would be working in an industry that will correlate with the kind of business you want to start.</p>
<p>Entrepreneurship or Management</p>
<p>engineering. make it and sell it. entrepreneurship is difficult because most of the time, students don't know how to make anything and most of the time, students don't have any money to buy something at a great margin and resell it. </p>
<p>Its a no brainer, engineering will give you the tools to make something. Just sell it after you make it.</p>
<p>"What major (or concentration specifically) is recommended for people who want to own their own company someday ?</p>
<p>Strategy, Finance, Management ...."</p>
<p>All of the above and then some more. Take some industrial physc classes as well (physc of the workplace, not did you sleep with your hands under the blankets? stuff). </p>
<p>Find out if you are a people person, if not, find someone who is. You can have the greatest product in the world but if you can't tell someone about it????</p>
<p>But prepared to work long hours and have little money to show for it as you build business. Learn to treat everybody as a customer, because they may be just that. </p>
<p>What interests you?</p>
<p>Actually, those with undergrad business degrees are at a disadvantage when applying for an MBA. Engineering degrees aren't much better. MBA programs seek diversity, so if you have some wacky degree (underwater basket-weaving perhaps) or a wacky career path (underwater basket-weaver in some remote village in Chile maybe) then you are at an advantage.</p>
<p>I would agree with the above sentiment that an engineering degree is generally more valuable. The top engineering degrees are very difficult, and keep in mind that your GPA could suffer because of that (which could affect your MBA applications in the future). However, it's pretty easy for a student to go from engineering to business. It's near impossible to go from business to engineering.</p>
<p>However, if you are a good free-thinker that has great ideas, then an entrepreneurship degree may be the way to go.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info VectorWega. So will I be at a disadvantage with a Business Degree. I'm planning on getting a dual degree (Engineering and Business). Opie, can you be a bit more specific ? Do you mean what interests me in general or what in regards to business interests me ?</p>
<p>"Do you mean what interests me in general or what in regards to business interests me ?"</p>
<p>Ideally what interests YOU that you can make a living from? You're looking at being self employed, you'd better like the business for more than the check. Cause not every self employed person gets a big check. </p>
<p>For me, it was coming to grips with the old saying if you're gonna work for an ASS, you might as well work for the one in the mirror. It wasn't so much the field I ended up with these last 20 years (insurance/investment) it was the challenge to use my brain differently in different situations daily. To be involved with different business as a consultant and trusted advisor. Every day offers variety good and bad variety. You haven't lived until you've lost a $50k a year account after 10 years for not willing to do something unethical. ouch. That's fun when your self employed. </p>
<p>What ever carreer you plan for plan to learn people skills. They will make you or break you. Remember everybody is a salesman, just most don't realize it.</p>
<p>Definitely not the check. It's basically the freedom to venture into new and exciting fields and the thrill of going head to head to other similar motivated people. I just a natural interest in basically managing stuff or leading. It's kind of hard to explain, I've always been the leader type.
And I can control (more or less) the fruits of my hard work. I'm great at working under pressure, critical thinking.</p>
<p>If competiting is what strikes you, i'd recommend going another route. Entrepreneurship is, moreso, about developing a company with no competition. The ultimate goal for every entrepreneur is to develop a strong business in an unsaturated industry. </p>
<p>Doing the double in engineering/business is great(go for it!). I would do the same but the time neccessary to acquire and undergrad engineering degree is too time consuming for me(i need to get out of college).</p>
<p>
[quote]
The ultimate goal for every entrepreneur is to develop a strong business in an unsaturated industry
[/quote]
</p>
<p>while that is wise, it simply is not true.</p>
<p>Ah again, an itch. Ok...</p>
<p>Rephrase: Every entrepreneur that I know that "Wants" to be successful enters an unsaturated market. And every entrepreneur that Southpasadena knows enters a saturated market.</p>
<p>The simple yet effective model by Guy Kawasaki:</p>
<p>(y-axis product differentiation)
| X-dell computers X-good spot to be, microsoft(high and to the right)
|
| .............> X-southpasadena (tons of competition, no diff. his petfood.com venture)
|___________ (x-axis competition)</p>
<p>He(southpasadena) enjoys knit picking at everything and can't appreciate good advice when he sees it. Why encourage someone to not believe that a good business starts with an unsaturated market? Bill gates did well, Tom Anderson did well, Yahoo did well, Apple's Ipod did well....</p>
<p>Next time: when you don't have something nice to say, don't say it. And more cliches include; "Some things are best left unsaid."</p>
<p>you seem to have mistaken "everyone that you know" with "every" which would include the entire populace of ambitious potential entrepreneurs. I am sorry if your hasty generalizations are false. </p>
<p>By the way i never declared my position nor do you in anyway know what my ventures have been, assumptions you continue to make because of....i am totally clueless by this part. I said it was not true, i did not say you were wrong.</p>
<p>Ok. I didn't know business was a true/false science like how scientists called pluto a science some odd years ago and people "thought" it was true until last year. What's really true? Is the truth so obvious that our senses do not deceive us? But when you look up at two buildings from below, does it not seem to converge? When you look at the horizon of a set of railroad tracks, do your eyes not deceive you? Our senses deceive us every day. Get over yourself... It doesn't matter what is true or what is not. But what matters is contributing to the conundrum of life whether it is a post on this board or creating a company that changes the world. What do you get by pointing out that something seems false to your senses? Do you make more friends at a party by correcting people's vocabulary or sentence structure? I was merely trying to motivate and position the OP in the direction where many have made fortunes, rather than saying "its not true, blah blah blah, people have made fortunes in saturated markets." Yeah but how many people have failed?</p>
<p>Its like the tv commerical by Larry H. Parker. "I have won 91% of my cases." What happened to the 9%? Are they cripple and collecting social security checks? Tell me the benefit of your post, "it is simply not true."</p>
<p>The point of my post is that a venture can be in a saturated industry. That was all, i am not poking fun.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So will I be at a disadvantage with a Business Degree.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>MBA programs simply "prefer" candidates from unusual backgrounds. However, one's undergraduate degree is just one piece of the puzzle. Thousands of applicants with business undergraduate degrees are accepted into top business schools ever year.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm planning on getting a dual degree (Engineering and Business).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Which engineering degree? Do you know what you plan to do with this? Do you plan to work for someone out of college? Do you know how long it will take to get both degrees? If it takes much longer, I would recommend sticking with an engineering degree and then getting an MBA down the line.</p>
<p>New ventures start in saturated markets all the time.</p>
<p>jpgnguyen get a life. you sound like one of those infomercial losers.</p>
<p>If you want a profitable venture with very little overhead, $52 BILLION are made each year on eBay. Try your hand at online auctioning. First start with your own junk that you don't want, then build up a good reputation and then have items consigned to you by some clients on a contingency basis, as in when you sell their product you pay them whatever price minus a previously agreed upon commission. But don't worry if you lose money in the first 6 months-MOST if not all businesses lose money in the first 6 months. In the eBay business getting a good reputation is of paramount importance.</p>
<p>But anyway if you have a great idea and there's an untapped market for it, just GO FOR IT. But make sure you control finances VERY TIGHTLY.</p>