<p>The only people I know who graduated this past year and last year from college who actually have jobs in their major are accounting and engineering majors. That includes some of my closest friends who were the top econ. students, the president of the undergraduate economics society, etc. Mind you, this is from one of the world’s top universities. My brother, an econ. major, advised me to study something more practical business-wise if I want a job in that sector (like marketing or management). Now everyone and their brother is majoring in economics.</p>
<p>In addition, you should only major in Economics if you have a real interest in the subject. Most of my classmates in HS found it dry but I thought it was amazing. My family was concerned that a major in Economics wouldn’t pay well (or pay better than business); thankfully, I’ve this this thread to show them now 
I am convinced though, that anyone who enjoys what’s he’s doing is going to get paid a lot for it, simply bcoz he’ll be so far ahead of everyone else who only got in the field for the $$$s. Passion plays/pays it.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: This solely my opinion AND I will be majoring in Econ</p>
<p>^^ A management major isn’t really all that practical. Econ is generally a better major.</p>
<p>Marketing majors don’t make that much $$$. Econ majors are definitely better paid on average.</p>
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<p>I have a friend looking at going into marketing, and it got me thinking: couldn’t an econ major do reasonably well in a marketing career? I mean, I’ve only taken microecon, but already talked about how firms price (part of the marketing mix) their products based on how competitors price, promotion, etc. Also, we’ve looked at how demand varies depending on a demographic, which is marketing as well. </p>
<p>So, Amazing, do you think that majoring in economics AND marketing could be a good idea for him? He’s especially into market research, and economics would give him a good math background for that, plus having an economics degree would make him marketable (no pun intended) for marketing jobs, and give him a backup in case marketing doesn’t work out.</p>
<p>personally i don’t think the economics would be that useful specifically for marketing but i believe a person with an economics background is suited for almost any career. If anything econ will make your friend a good thinker which is useful in marketing. I think that econ is a good second major for anyone who is focused on going in any direction.</p>
<p>I really wish people obsessed with business skills would just leave the economics department alone. Economist doesn’t teach you business skills or anything of the kind, so please don’t subject me and my fellow, real econ majors (the ones majoring in it because we find the study of economics fascinating) to your utter disinterest in class, or for that matter, complaints about having to use math.</p>
<p>I’m so tired of business kids majoring in economics even though they’re obviously not suited for it. Go find a business program willing to accept you, mmkay?</p>
<p>”The most lucrative college major is economics, which has an earnings premium of 0.33 log points and a premium of 0.19 including occupation controls.”
- Goldin and Katz analysis of Harvard graduates
- Greg Mankiw’s Blog: Why Major in Economics?
-----*Consider that IB and consulting are the top destinations from Harvard Econ undergrad, extremely lucrative career paths that would come after a finance degree at many other schools
”Economics is enjoying surging popularity with college students, especially at the
nation’s most elite institutions. Economics is the top major at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford and the Universities of Pennsylvania and Chicago; second at Brown, Yale and the University of California at Berkeley; and third at Cornell and Dartmouth.”</p>
<ol>
<li>Econ is the top major at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, UPenn, UChicago</li>
</ol>
<p>----With the exception of Berkeley and Penn, none of these universities have business schools, and it’s safe to say many who major in econ at these schools do so because it is the closest thing to business ( and even with Penn, I would imagine a lot of students who didn’t make it into Wharton do econ as a backup, though I’m sure many do it as a first choice as well)
----I also noticed several of the figures lumped finance in with econ and then treated Marketing, mgt, separately, but remember finance IS a business degree as well
----On the whole though, you’re right about econ being a very interesting and valuable major, the argument was just a bit one-sided.</p>
<p>Economics > Business administration easily. Most undergrad business majors learn what? Learning how to use a computer or answering phones? What a joke. Econ is much more technical and requires a larger intellectual capacity.</p>
<p>To the writer of this post:</p>
<p>I agree with a lot of your points, but here’s an argument that comes to mind when I see your post:</p>
<p>MANY of the top schools in the country such as, but not limited to: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, UChicago, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, and UCLA do not have undergraduate business programs. As a result, many of the students who attend these universities and plan on going into business resort to Economics as the “closest option”. </p>
<p>Many of these schools (especially HYPS) are the main targets for the top iBanking jobs in the country available to students who have just completed their undergraduate studies, who are competing against students with majors in business from lower level universities. </p>
<p>In conclusion, I begin to wonder if the statistics are not a bit skewed by this discrepancy in the availability of an undergraduate major in business at top universities. It is interesting to hypothesize how these rankings would change if schools like HYPS (among the others), were to begin offering Bachelor degrees in Business Administration.</p>
<p>Just a different view to take on the issue.</p>
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<p>MIS is generally more technical than economics.</p>
<p>And what do undergrad econ majors learn? A bunch of theory that is not in line with the way things work in reality? An inflated ego and feelings that you are somehow intellectually superior than people who chose something different?..that seems to be what many econ advocates on this board are conveying through their posts. All those econ CEO’s must have learned humility and people skills sometime after receiving their undergrad degrees then.</p>
<p>Yes, Economics is useless in real life, not practical at all, so please, business kids, leave the economics department alone. </p>
<p>God I wish I could convince everybody that Economics is useless so that only people really intellectually stimulated by it would major in it.</p>
<p>You missed the point Ray…I don’t think econ is useless, nor should anyone, but the attitudes of intellectual arrogance shown by many of its advocates here doesn’t help your position</p>
<p>Shhhhh, I’m trying to convince the business majors to leave my major alone.</p>
<p>*I have a friend looking at going into marketing, and it got me thinking: couldn’t an econ major do reasonably well in a marketing career? I mean, I’ve only taken microecon, but already talked about how firms price (part of the marketing mix) their products based on how competitors price, promotion, etc. Also, we’ve looked at how demand varies depending on a demographic, which is marketing as well.</p>
<p>So, Amazing, do you think that majoring in economics AND marketing could be a good idea for him? He’s especially into market research, and economics would give him a good math background for that, plus having an economics degree would make him marketable (no pun intended) for marketing jobs, and give him a backup in case marketing doesn’t work out.*</p>
<p>Well considering that I’m currently a Marketing intern for a video game company… and am working on marketing campaigns for a THQ game and several MMOs, I would say the Econ major on my resume didn’t hold me back from it. Also, the other marketing intern here is an Econ major from another school. Not going to say it helps for marketing, but it doesn’t hurt.</p>
<p>I’m so tired of business kids majoring in economics even though they’re obviously not suited for it. Go find a business program willing to accept you, mmkay?</p>
<p>Haha considering the big difference in difficulty between business and econ classes, I don’t think you should have to worry about that. It’s not like they’re going to be hurting your econ curve or anything.</p>
<p>In conclusion, I begin to wonder if the statistics are not a bit skewed by this discrepancy in the availability of an undergraduate major in business at top universities. It is interesting to hypothesize how these rankings would change if schools like HYPS (among the others), were to begin offering Bachelor degrees in Business Administration.</p>
<p>I really doubt that there would be a significant amount of skewing by a handful of elite universities when mean/median salary statistics are taken across the country. Not only that, Econ appears on lists such as most demanded, most favored by employers, etc… which skewing wouldn’t really have an effect on.</p>
<p>And yes, there would probably be a huge change in rankings if the top schools offered Bus Admin degrees. However, there is a reason they don’t. Why do they all only offer MBA/grad level B schools and only Econ at the undergrad level? And this is universal across most top schools. It’s not decided on randomly obviously. Bus Admin is much more practical at the graduate level, while at only the undergraduate level, Econ majors are seen as having more intellectual capacity and can be more easily trained for a variety of occupations. That last part is my opinion, but most top schools don’t decide to not offer business at the undergrad level randomly.</p>
<p>You missed the point Ray…I don’t think econ is useless, nor should anyone, but the attitudes of intellectual arrogance shown by many of its advocates here doesn’t help your position</p>
<p>You know, the intellectual arrogance in this thread was just a rebuttal to the years of arrogance from business majors. Business majors have notoriously been putting down not just econ majors (econ is useless, business is better for jobs), but basically all of the liberal arts/social sciences. Sorry, but for every 1 arrogant econ major, you will find 10 arrogant business majors.</p>
<p>*You missed the point Ray…I don’t think econ is useless, nor should anyone, but the attitudes of intellectual arrogance shown by many of its advocates here doesn’t help your position</p>
<p>You know, the intellectual arrogance in this thread was just a rebuttal to the years of arrogance from business majors. Business majors have notoriously been putting down not just econ majors (econ is useless, business is better for jobs), but basically all of the liberal arts/social sciences. Sorry, but for every 1 arrogant econ major, you will find 10 arrogant business majors.*</p>
<p>2 WRONGS MAKES A RIGHT?..and extrapolating your unpleasant experiences with some business majors is hardly fair. I don’t know any business majors who have shown similar intellectual arrogance; that is much more often displayed by A&L majors. It’s one thing to claim your major is better suited to get a job(which I admit business and engineering students might be prone to do), another thing entirely to pretend members of your major sit in an intellectual ivory tower atop an insurmountable peak for all the “inferior” business majors.</p>
<p>Please don’t take the fact that most Ivies don’t offer undergrad business and use it support your own presumptions. You might be, in some way or part, correct, but there’s really no basis to make such claims.</p>
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<p>The problem comes when the biz people demand that the department tone down the math and other material. At another college my friend goes to, multivariable calc was removed from intermediate micro for exactly this purpose. And don’t even get me started on econometrics.</p>
<p>What kind of math should an economics major take that plans on entering the corporate world after graduation? My college requires Calculus I & II, Economic Statistics with Calculus, and Econometrics. Would Calculus III, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra be of any use?</p>
<p>I have no issue between the two majors, but I kind of agree with roneald in that iBanks target schools like HYP. They probably even recruit students that don’t even major in economics. I had an interviewer from Yale who had a Theater Degree (or something similar) and was working at a financial firm.</p>
<p>In my opinion, I feel that when your in a top undergrad school, you can study anything and receive a job that is dissimilar to your major. In lower ranked schools there is more of a pressure to study something that will relate to your intended career.</p>