yes, Michigan is probably one of hte top 3 most heavily recruited schools; problem is, i've heard econ majors there are kinda seen as being not smart enough to hack it in the b-school.

but i would imagine that, once you're inside Ross, it doesn't matter that much what major/concentration you pick.

 

I would say that for UK universities it depends on the particular institution and on how you can/they allow you to structure your course. If the course if pretty flexible you could take lots of finance modules.

 
excelsior:
anyone else have input on this? i'm more interested in pwm or consulting though.

finance.

You can get all that you need out of accounting in 2-3 courses. If I see "accounting major" on a resume from a school that I know has a finance major, I have to wonder if the person is really interested in finance...

and I just want to add, no one cares about a double major in finance/accounting (except for maybe an accounting firm). If you want to double major, do 2 unrelated things

 
LondonE1:
Accounting is VERRRRY useful....double major in Acct & Finance.

Double major in Acct & Finance? And you claim you went to a target? Most Ivy's don't have UGrad B-schools. The ones that do, (along with non-ivy targets) don't allow people to double-major inside the business school due to the selectivity of the school. In other words, due to space issues.

I have NEVER seen a resume from a kid at our target schools have Finance and Accounting DM. Wondering where you went to school london... perhaps LCC "london community college"?

 
Millhouse:
They also have finance and accounting... well look at that!

No shit. At Wharton, it works a little bit different. They have concentrations, instead of majors. Yes, they have both an accounting and finance concentrations, BUT if you want both of them it is subject to space (aka dual-concentration requirements). Since finance and accounting are the two major concentrations, it is practically impossible to have a dual-concentration inside of Fina & Acct.

Even if you want a dual-concentration in Fina and Mrktg for instance, you have to apply and you are subject to a minimum cutoff GPA to apply (currently set at 3.70).

 

I don't think you are correct. The 3.70 cutoff is what is practically required if you are in the college or engineering and want to transfer or get a dual DEGREE. If you are in Wharton, you just need the 4 upper level classes to satisfy the second concentration.

 
Millhouse:
I don't think you are correct. The 3.70 cutoff is what is practically required if you are in the college or engineering and want to transfer or get a dual DEGREE. If you are in Wharton, you just need the 4 upper level classes to satisfy the second concentration.

You are correct. I talked with a freind of mine that went to wharton and you are spot on. They used to only allow MBA students to do this, now it is true for the entire school. He said it is becoming common to double-concentrate at Wharton because they count many of the classes you take for both ACCT and FINA.

 

This my welcome to WOS comment. I am at a very non-target school, in my opinion, an "off the radar" school, called Florida Southern College. I am currently a Finance Major, but am thinking of double majoring in Finance AND Accounting. Any thoughts?

" 'Cause when ya meals appear; ya errybodys silverware" L.B.
 

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I'm also an accounting & finance double major. It's funny because at my school finance people think accounting's the easy major and accounting people think finance is very difficult. I think accounting is a very valuable major because you can never just learn it on your own and even if you did, no one would hire you as an accountant.

Finance is not that way, but my thought process going into it was that I wanted to do finance so I should study finance? Seems logical right? But apparently according to this forum and the whole profesh world, people who study finance are generally dumber and don't typically get WS jobs. That's fine. I get that since most of my classmates are self-described bros who just want to make a lot of $$$. It's just...we should sort out this fallacy before we decide our majors.

Be warned. Finance major does not equal finance job. Philosophy major might equal finance job. Haha. What a twisted world.

 

It is a pet peeve of mine that students are taught calculus in high-school but not accounting. I took three years of calculus and never used it once in my life. I now own parts of several businesses and I have never taken accounting but I very much wish I had. Everybody ought to start with accounting. johnk is completely correct. The reason students don't take accounting is because is is hard. Which is exactly why they should take it.

 
dwaiken:
It is a pet peeve of mine that students are taught calculus in high-school but not accounting. I took three years of calculus and never used it once in my life. I now own parts of several businesses and I have never taken accounting but I very much wish I had. Everybody ought to start with accounting. johnk is completely correct. The reason students don't take accounting is because is is hard. Which is exactly why they should take it.

If you think accounting and/or finance is mentally challenging or "hard" then you should probably just give up on life now.

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 

Yea im pretty sure accounting is way more relevant than engineering for the kind of consulting you want to do. Especially if you're shooting for Bain/Mckinsey etc, they actually do a fair amount of modeling work. Aside from that, if you even want to have a mildly successful career in business (or advising business) I would say accounting is invaluable. If you're non-ivy, do finance and accounting. Really the best way to go imo and you'll never have to deal with the "why banking/consulting" hurdle. Banks/Consultancies do recruit nonbusiness majors, but obviously they're gonna look at finance/accounting kids first. Why make recruiting harder on yourself?

 
hungry:
Yea im pretty sure accounting is way more relevant than engineering for the kind of consulting you want to do. Especially if you're shooting for Bain/Mckinsey etc, they actually do a fair amount of modeling work. Aside from that, if you even want to have a mildly successful career in business (or advising business) I would say accounting is invaluable. If you're non-ivy, do finance and accounting. Really the best way to go imo and you'll never have to deal with the "why banking/consulting" hurdle. Banks/Consultancies do recruit nonbusiness majors, but obviously they're gonna look at finance/accounting kids first. Why make recruiting harder on yourself?

Yeahhh about McKinsey/BCG/Bain, I'm actually not aiming for those at all lol. I know there is no chance that I'll get in given that i'm at a non-target and don't have the greatest GPA (I have a 3.2, still a sophomore so I have time to get that up). I'm actually looking more at the second-tiers like Booze and such and I'll try and get into MBB after an MBA or something I think.

 

Consultants aren't accountants, the skill set from accounting isn't applicable for any strategy or operations consulting work. To be honest, I don't know of many consultants who have accounting backgrounds. Engineering backgrounds are a lot more common, fairly easy to spin the engineering story into consulting (problem solving, lots of brainpower, etc.)

If you are really looking into "second tier" consulting firms, then you're pretty much limiting yourself to operations and implementation work. Getting an undergrad business degree in the relevant area (e.g. operations, supply chain management, etc) or some sort of engineering will be more useful than finance/accounting.

Keep in mind that for undergraduate recruiting into consulting firms, it's all about demonstrating mental horsepower as well interest in consulting.

 
freeloader:
Consultants aren't accountants, the skill set from accounting isn't applicable for any strategy or operations consulting work. To be honest, I don't know of many consultants who have accounting backgrounds. Engineering backgrounds are a lot more common, fairly easy to spin the engineering story into consulting (problem solving, lots of brainpower, etc.)

If you are really looking into "second tier" consulting firms, then you're pretty much limiting yourself to operations and implementation work. Getting an undergrad business degree in the relevant area (e.g. operations, supply chain management, etc) or some sort of engineering will be more useful than finance/accounting.

Keep in mind that for undergraduate recruiting into consulting firms, it's all about demonstrating mental horsepower as well interest in consulting.

so would econ and ISOM (that's similar to supply chain at my school) be a good combo then? Econ is somewhat theoretical and ISOM is supply chain. The only thing is, if I don't get into consulting, then I'm basically screwed bc those are probably the more useless of the degrees at my school...

 

First determine which firms recruit at your school, then determine which majors they target (or get most times) for which jobs. i.e. in my school, firms like Protiviti were targeting mostly DIS, CIS majors. Those recruiting for operational consulting were going for more Industrial Engineering majors. So basically go to your career fair site, which firms have on campus recruiting, see what kind of job they have, if they have any preferred/required major. If you can't figure out preferred major, ask people or go to their info session. Obviously this assumes you get some firms coming to your school.

But from my experience, Engineering is more preferred than Finance/Business/Accounting.

 
brick:
First determine which firms recruit at your school, then determine which majors they target (or get most times) for which jobs. i.e. in my school, firms like Protiviti were targeting mostly DIS, CIS majors. Those recruiting for operational consulting were going for more Industrial Engineering majors. So basically go to your career fair site, which firms have on campus recruiting, see what kind of job they have, if they have any preferred/required major. If you can't figure out preferred major, ask people or go to their info session. Obviously this assumes you get some firms coming to your school.

But from my experience, Engineering is more preferred than Finance/Business/Accounting.

My school doesn't have any name consulting firms unfortunately, so I'm not sure how much help that will be. Are there perhaps easier areas besides IT within the good firms that I could get into (for example, I'd bet that operations or marketing is less competitive to get into than management or strategy)? After working in that area for a bit, I could then get an MBA and attempt to change industries within the firm, or, since I'd enjoy marketing or ops consulting anyway, I can just work up in that sector. Plus, I bet that marketing or supply chain management would be a lot less competitive in terms of grades, so my GPA would be a lot better if I majored in those and tried to get into consulting in those areas than something like finance or engineering.

 

To be fair about it, at least in my firm, operational consulting is not very easy to get in (easier than strategy, but much tougher than IT). When you think about it, out of 100 new hires, 10 are in operational/strategy, 90 in IT, and all 100 of them want to be in operational/strategy. So they get their picks. They have their list of target schools (i.e. for supply chain they are looking at Michigan, GaTech, etc.) and most people I see have tough majors with 1 or more real internships. If no one is recruiting in your school, you have to go thru online recruiting or networking, and frankly a hard major will impress them more than 3.9 (I'd think 3.5ish in a tough major will suffice). You also need to build your story around a relevant internship. I don't think you can land many internships with marketing, but might be wrong. You also need to consider your back ups. Putting all the eggs in consulting basket right now, what if it doesn't work out. At least with engineering you'll get a decent job in most cases.

 
brick:
To be fair about it, at least in my firm, operational consulting is not very easy to get in (easier than strategy, but much tougher than IT). When you think about it, out of 100 new hires, 10 are in operational/strategy, 90 in IT, and all 100 of them want to be in operational/strategy. So they get their picks. They have their list of target schools (i.e. for supply chain they are looking at Michigan, GaTech, etc.) and most people I see have tough majors with 1 or more real internships. If no one is recruiting in your school, you have to go thru online recruiting or networking, and frankly a hard major will impress them more than 3.9 (I'd think 3.5ish in a tough major will suffice). You also need to build your story around a relevant internship. I don't think you can land many internships with marketing, but might be wrong. You also need to consider your back ups. Putting all the eggs in consulting basket right now, what if it doesn't work out. At least with engineering you'll get a decent job in most cases.

well, I actually wouldn't be COMPLETELY against IT. I like tech-related business, programming, and shit like that, it's just that people here claim that IT people don't make any money at all, which is kind of discouraging me from doing it. But then again, people here think that 150k is a shit salary as well, so who knows? What do you all think about IT Consulting? Is there potential to make money in it if you move up and get your MBA? How hard is that to break into at decent firms?

 

Do math. People think you're smart if you're a math major (and truthfully, i've met very few math majors who weren't at least pretty smart).

As always, the prestige/ impressiveness of what you do is a lot more important than the actual content/ skills gained for getting and interview, and once u get the interview its game on.

 

MBB seeks out the nerds - so a math major would be great.

Overall major is not important. However, if you non-target school has a high ranking major it would be worth doing that major. They look for leadership, internships, and much more than your major.

PM me your school. I go to a non-target school and got offer from MBB and final rounds at all 3.

AudiChow
 
audichow:
MBB seeks out the nerds - so a math major would be great.

Overall major is not important. However, if you non-target school has a high ranking major it would be worth doing that major. They look for leadership, internships, and much more than your major.

PM me your school. I go to a non-target school and got offer from MBB and final rounds at all 3.

PM sent.

Also, is accounting considered a difficult major? Yeah, it isn't engineering/math/phys, but accounting is by far the most difficult business major, so does that help at all?

 

Pick a major that tests your analytical skills and shows that you're 'smart'. This could be engineering, maths, the sciences, perhaps economics. Such a major signals that you have some brainpower, which is one of the things that you need to present to be considered for an interview (there are other things too). Accounting is probably a good major with a useful qualification for business, but does not test the skills you'll need as a consultant.

I have majored in Finance and believe that this is actually useful if you're planning for a long-term business career, but picking such a subject area is a long-term valuable / short-term risky strategy if planning to start as a consultant given that you may just not get to interview in the firrst place. That said, if you choose a 'hard' major, you need to ensure that you will be be at or close to the top of your class when graduating, so make sure you can actually deliver (enjoying your subject would be quite helpful in achieving this!).

MBB are indeed the most selective but second tier strategy firms like Booz and others are just marginally less difficult to break into. In fact, as they need less people than MBB, they may focus on just a few schools and only invite what MBB 'left over' which is still quite a competitive peer group.

IT consulting is a different career althogether (even though you'd be called a 'consultant' too) and not what you should do if equipped with a genuine interest in business (go investment banking or industry if strategy consulting doesn't work) or technology (you'll be doing far more creative stuff as an engineer at Google, MS, etc.).

 

I've decided to split the difference and declare a finance minor, but take a few more accounting classes (once I get my foot in the door the business department allows this) as well as finance classes, and probably end up not completing the minor. No biggie, because It was only a means to an end anyways. If anyone does end up reading any of this, I'm very new to all this, but where are realistic jobs to aim for coming from a state school?

 

Major in Finance. Minor in accounting. Did a few months right out of school in the accounting side with a planned transition over to the finance side (Think Asset Management, acquisitions/dispositions, etc.). Getting that minor in accounting (and possibly a CPA later in life) will help you get further up in a company and give you a lot better understanding of how the business works.

 
Best Response

Accounting. Good skills for the next recession when capital freezes. How I survived the Near Great Depression after doing acquisitions for three years.

Why accounting for real estate career?

  • cash flow: Acctg usually includes an auditing class. You develop professional skeptism from learning about internal controls, etc. learning how to validate CFs is an important part of due diligence. Follow the money.

  • taxes: undergrad federal income taxation might be useful to understand benefits of long term capital gains treatment; dividends; ERISA for pension plan advisors. Important for understanding cost of capital.

  • public accounting: you prob go to a non-target for private equity, acq type jobs. Same as me a decade ago. I kind of favor making $60K in public acctg in the Bay Area after graduation than going straight into brokerage as an analyst. I think a little seasoning in the multi-industry world of public accounting will give you a generalist experience for 1-2 years.

  • fall back: there may be times when you are underemployed. I could be an interim CFO, Director of Finance if I had to.

  • MBA: you can get a waiver from financial and managerial Acctg if you majored or have a cpa. Used those credits to learn something more interesting while you pay $100k+ for your MBA.

I may be biased since I had limited finance course experience. The best concepts that shaped my investment style are Austrian School of Ecomomics (via Wikipedia) and Modigliani Miller (corporate finance section on valuation) The rest Excel handles for me.

MBA level classes on M&A, PE/VC, project finance were great. If your undergrad has these classes, you go to a great school. CSU prob not, but Berkeley Haas has some great UG finance courses.

There have been many great real estate investors who were CPAs. Accounting is a solid technical skill. Also don't fret if you take one more semester to graduate. Try to become the president of Beta Alpha Psi or something. You can do it.

Have compassion as well as ambition and you’ll go far in life. Check out my blog at MemoryVideo.com
 

Thanks for the advice. A lot of it makes sense which is the reason I've been so apprehensive about switching to finance. The issue I have with taking an extra semester is that I'm an older transfer student so I'm looking to graduate asap, ideally within 3 semesters but at most within 4.

I'm also not sure how feasible moving from Audit --> Any type of CRE analyst is as well.

Majoring in finance would likely close some doors for sure, in that I could not work at a Big 4. The nice thing though is that there are so many F500 Financial Analyst jobs in the bay area and my university has a ton of grads working in those positions that I still be okay if CRE didn't work out (I think?).

 

My advice is this in general. Try to get the best job or be in the best group at a company that you can reasonably get. Nontarget, CSU, the best business job out of UG in acctg/finance is Big Four public accounting. It was for me. The highest profile group at a REPE is acquisitions. Development if you work for a vertically intergrated RE shop (aka highest risk, highest return). Aim for the best if that fits your personality. Understand what are your true strengths/talents. Attention to detail? Accounting helps hone. Researching trends; social sciences is great background for that mainly due to the hollowing out of writing skills in business programs.

Have compassion as well as ambition and you’ll go far in life. Check out my blog at MemoryVideo.com
 

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