Which degree is generally better?

<p>For high finance, which of these degrees would stack up against the others?</p>

<p>Accounting
Finance
Business Administration
Economics
Engineering
Mathematics
Physics
(If there are others you think should be mentioned please do so)</p>

<p>Lets say a student from Berekeley is applying to jobs on the West Coast financial scene, which degrees would give them a better chance?</p>

<p>I keep thinking engineering, physics, and math grads would be more attractive to employers over business, accounting, or economics but I don't know. What are your thoughts?</p>

<p>Depends on the sector you want to work in and what you enjoy doing.</p>

<p>Warren Buffet and Bill Gates together stated that the best “next hot” field to get into is the field you enjoy most. </p>

<p>Are you financing:
Oil and Gas?
Real Estate?
Retail?
Hollywood? Private Equity was involved in “Avatar”
Amusement Parks? Again Private Equity. (Merlin… A British Company)
Mining?
Banks?
Silicon Valley Tech?

  • software or Hardware
  • Bio Tech or something else?
    Textiles?
    Agriculture?
    Broadcasting?
    Auto?
    Airlines?
    Casino’s?
    Tourism?
    Advertising?
    Publishing?
    Porn?</p>

<p>People keep pointing to engineering but really that a lot of BS. Engineers are worthless in bank analysis. You want finance BBA with an MBA or MSF for that. Engineers are good for maybe Oil and Gas but I would think a geologist or a chemist would make more sense if your talking about financing prospecting (geology) or R&D (organic chemistry). It’s BS Particularly if you get into engineering and destroy your GPA because you hate it and would have preferred Architecture, or Finance & Real Estate. If that happens you can forget high finance unless your an entrepreneur.</p>

<p>Some guys on here give the impression that it doesn’t matter if you go to a “top school”. You don’t even have to be competent at anything. I believe that more than not. I don’t think Sr. Partners want competent and aggressive, they just want yes men they can work for a few years till burn out. That way they don’t have to share equity and power. But that’s just my thing. Crazy talk.</p>

<p>Finance is the best. Accounting isn’t good for high finance. Economics is only good (as in comparable to undergrad Finance from Wharton, Stern, etc.) if you go to Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Yale, etc. where there are no undergrad degrees in finance.</p>

<p>Yeah at a top business school (Wharton, Ross, Haas, UVA, UNC, Sloan) Finance. Or economics at Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Princeton, Columbia, etc. That’s the ticket.</p>

<p>Wow – IT DOESN’T MATTER!!! I suppose someone with a finance degree will have marginally better financial knowledge than someone with an english degree, but you learn EVERYTHING you need to know on the job, both through training and initially jumping on deal teams. As an entry level low-life analyst, you’re not going to be a decision maker. You’re going to be an excel/powerpoint/word/coffee/dry cleaning slave. Just make sure you know ENOUGH finance/accounting to sound competent in an interview. (Note: internship experience trumps any bachelor’s degree)</p>

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<p>Tell that to a physical education, international relations, recreation, drama etc major.</p>

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<p>Ok you took that a bit too extreme. As long as the major projects some air of intelligence.</p>

<p>It does matter. Why would an employer choose somebody who majored in english when they could choose a finance major who has an underlying understanding of how things work. Also, I doubt they teach english majors the same amount of excel modeling skills as they do english majors in school.</p>

<p>I am not saying english majors can’t get into IB, but it is a lot easier for a finance/accounting/econ major.</p>

<p>Talk to your college career advisement office or whatever fills that function at your school.</p>

<p>Unless you are unusually disciplined and /or very strange, you will have trouble excelling at something you hate.</p>

<p>On the other hand, employers will only pay you to do their thing, not yours.</p>

<p>Somewhere between these extremes, you can find happiness and gainfull employment.</p>

<p>Because, as an Analyst, you are not required to have “an underlying understanding of how things work”, or whatever you want to call it. If you’re smart and know the basics they will teach you the rest. I guarantee you a top bank will take an English major from Harvard with a demonstrated interest in banking + basic competency with finance and accounting over the VAST majority of finance majors from undergrad business schools across the country. Even when looking at Harvard kids vs. Wharton kids, Harvard kids will win out a lot, if not a majority, of the time.</p>

<p>Direct quote from M&I:"3. What classes should I take?</p>

<p>Specific classes matter much less than internships.</p>

<p>Finance or economics-related classes are good to demonstrate interest and gain some knowledge, but if you are spending hours deliberating whether to take Advanced Microeconomics in Developing Countries I or International Monetary Policy II, please stop because it doesn’t matter."</p>

<p>I’d take an english major with a banking internship than a finance major with no experience a hundred times over, which segues nicely to the next M&I quote: “Someone with a 3.5 GPA who can write “Investment Banking Summer Analyst” on his or her resume will beat the person with a 4.0 who only has experience waiting tables any day of the week.”</p>

<p>So, getting back to what the OP asked, ESPECIALLY because you’re choosing between majors that are quantitative and demonstrate intelligence, IT DOESN’T MATTER. Pick one you like. If there isn’t some sort of a recruiting advantage to picking one of the business oriented majors (Fin/Acc), I’d say go with math, physics, or engin. But not if it will significantly hurt your GPA. You definitely want to stay above that 3.5 mark.</p>

<p>I agree that the experience matters much more, but it would be a lot easier for the finance major to get that first internship than the english major.</p>

<p>Maybe, maybe not. If the finance major has some extra recruiting benefits for junior year internships by being in his college’s business school, then I agree. But, the majority of internships before junior year are obtained through connections. In that case, it would not matter. Regardless, the original poster’s question asked about math/physics/engin/acc/fin/econ/busad – for those majors, it definitely doesn’t matter. For anyone with any major, you just have to show a demonstrated interest in finance.</p>

<p>Basically if you are smart, have high GPA and attend a target, you will be considered.</p>

<p>I appreciate the feedback everyone.</p>

<p>"I’d take an english major with a banking internship than a finance major with no experience a hundred times over, which segues nicely to the next M&I quote: “Someone with a 3.5 GPA who can write “Investment Banking Summer Analyst” on his or her resume will beat the person with a 4.0 who only has experience waiting tables any day of the week.”</p>

<p>I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison.</p>

<p>If everything is kept exactly the same, with both applicants having done the same internship from the same firm, one being an english major and the other being a finance major… Who gets picked? Assuming everything is the same finance hands down all day. Is that right?</p>

<p>But I’d have to agree with giant that english is an extreme example. I guess my hypothetical question would be:</p>

<p>A firm has one spot open and they only have two applicants, these two has incredible GPAs, and both of them come from Harvard, but one is a math/engineering student and the other is a finance/economics student. Which one generally gets picked?</p>

<p>Honestly have no idea, I would assume finance because it shows good interest. I asked someone and he was convinced that finance is great, very logical choice, but they teach you all you need to know during the analyst program which is what giant also posted. That same someone said the mathematicians/physicists will get hired without a doubt because of their presumed “higher level of comprehension”.</p>

<p>Any opinions on that?</p>

<p>I spoke with a member on my universities Board of Trustees who was an MD at Goldman Sachs for about 22 years about this issue–I basically asked him if he thought that it would be advantageous if I were to transfer into the undergraduate business program at my school. He told me how he was a Government major as an UG, and was able to land both SA positions and a job with GS right out of college. </p>

<p>He also told me that from the personal viewpoint of himself and other members he worked with, they tended to pick some Finance/Business majors just cause they showed the basic knowledge of banking in interviews, but anytime a liberal arts/humanities kid walked in and showed he knew what he was talking about, that student always had an advantage because they saw in him the drive to be well rounded educationally, and at the same time take the time to develop the necessary knowledge about finance. </p>

<p>He also said that it’s pretty well known that a finance degree is not as rigorous as a liberal arts one, so those students will often get a boost from that. </p>

<p>From your previous question about the two Harvard students, since Harvard doesn’t have a finance major, I’d say they would be on equal footing, since Economics is very different from Finance. </p>

<p>Also, I think the key concept here is breaking into the industry. True, if an English major can garner the necessary knowledge to be competitive for a job they have a great advantage, but often this knowledge comes in the form of experience, and especially early on when at least SOME core classes are required, it’s hard for an English major to get a banking job after his sophomore year when he’s still finishing up his major requirements and hasn’t had a chance to take a basic econ class yet.</p>

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<p>You’re getting too particular. At this point, it doesn’t really matter. Finance does NOT win hands down all day. In fact, quite honestly, if I were making the decision, I would pick the english major (assuming both kids did well in their internships, demonstrated by receiving return offers). I will second roneald who said:

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<p>There is a lot more writing involved in investment banking than one normally thinks. Having the finance knowledge from the internship combined with being able to alter an Offering Memorandum for sentence structure/flow/grammar/spelling is very helpful. But quite honestly, it’s not a huge deal. </p>

<p>Next,</p>

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<p>roneald had it right when he said:

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<p>Harvard doesn’t been a business/finance program because their students are so smart. Continuing with the theme, banks want smart/competent/socially agile people who have great work ethics, which a plethora of those kids have. Against the brand name of Harvard/Princeton/Yale, it’s the schools like Michigan, NYU, UVA, etc. that need business programs to make their top kids stand out with the slight perceived added value of having some finance knowledge in their curriculum, but that perception is mostly bull*****. What those undergrad programs do is aggregate the kids who want to go into business/finance. I’m a math/econ major and I beat out many Umich Ross B-school kids this year for internship recruiting (granted, I had to do A LOT of my own work just to get noticed, because Ross erects tough barriers to access interview selection for the non-BBAs).</p>

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<p>All else equal, I would definitely hire the math/physics major because it shows the person is smarter.</p>

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<p>I suppose so, but if you have a demonstrated interest, most internships obtained before the junior year are through connections anyway.</p>

<p>Giants, are you a hiring manager at a bank? An analyst? Just a student?</p>

<p>giants, you are just a student and since you have no hiring or even regular working experience, you are just speculating. However, you do write a compelling fantasy.</p>

<p>That’s what I thought. And if I had to guess further, I would say you weren’t accepted to your schools business program.</p>

<p>As some shameless self promotion:</p>

<p>I just got news today that my company is now a registered investment adviser. I do Financial Planning, Pension Consulting, Portfolio Design, and international Private Equity VC.</p>

<p>Which qualifies the following:</p>

<p>I’m not an I-Banker but I look like one. If I had the choice I would hire Finance. In fact I would hire the one with any business background before the English major. Given the same internship and grades but top school v. regular school. It’s a no brainer. 2nd choice is someone with a strong quantitative background. All this IQ BS is just that. Top students go to all schools. The “top schools” do not have a monopoly on talent just on exclusivity.</p>

<p>If I higher outside of that it’s because that person is a friend of the family or networked the hell out of me and impressed me. I don’t have time to train someone what they should have learned in school.</p>