Harvard Econ Majors - Tracking success
Hi, I will be attending Harvard next fall (class of 2015) and am thinking about what concentration I'd like to study.
I am thinking about Biomedical Engineering or Econ. For my future plans, I would either like to go to med school or try to break onto an PE/HF on Wall Street.
I heard wall street sometimes likes to recruit engineers for their analytical skills? On the other hand, when I looked at the majority % of majors who were recruited into BB, they were finance/econ majors. A lot of these banks do recruit finance/econ majors but I feel like since there are so many econ majors (especially at harvard), does this make it harder for some students to break into the field because of the competition? If I were to do engineering, would it allow me to stand out from the crowd of econ majors?
So far, I've only met people who did liberal arts majors at Harvard who were able to pull off some nice SA internships so I have really no personal experiences as to whether which might be better (econ or engineering).
Also, if you have any engineering friends or just knowledge about the grading in engineering, is it probably easier to get a higher GPA with an econ major as compared to an engineering major? GPA, I've heard is one of the important factors for landing a Summer analyst internship.
I am aware that Econ is the largest major at Harvard and I was wondering if this leads to an increase in the competitiveness/difficulty of maintaining a good GPA (~3.7+)? I friend once told me that the larger class sizes for intro Econ classes was beneficial (I assume because more people were able to get A's?)
Appreciate any and all opinions/info!
Just finished up UG at Harvard, so I'll give you my two cents:
1) employers like atypical majors like biomed engineering more than they like econ. Econ majors looking into finance are a dime-a-dozen, and it was often remarked to me that "my resume looked like everyone else's."
2) grading is HARD in engineering. For that reason alone, frankly, I wouldn't recommend it. But that is easy for me to say because I was finance from day one and didn't want to keep one oar in the med school lake. Figure out quick if you want to be in Med School or not, and if not, then forget about pre-med. It's brutal at Harvard and I'm not exaggerating when I say of all the people I knew, pre-med kids had GPA's literally .2-or-more lower.
3) My recommendation? Major in something not hard (sciences and math) and not typical (econ and gov) and commit seriously to one finance activity that will make you look a) smart with a high GPA and b) passionate about finance because of your involvement. The most successful candidates I knew of were Sociology majors (total bullshit concentration) who had board positions in Harvard Investment Association, just to give you a concrete hypothetical.
It's hard to suck in ec, but it's hard to excel. THAT's the risk of the large classes. Getting pigeon-holed in B+/A- land way easier than you might think ....
i don't think you want to major in sociology over econ if you're looking at working on wall street. sosc is generally a joke. at least in econ you have to take metrics, stats, higher level math (relative to any general math requirement and what is most likely required for sosc.). people know this and a lot of people look at degrees like sociology and are biased towards thinking they are soft. that said, harvard sosc. on your resume is probably better than any state school econ degree (and probably better than econ degrees from a lot of good private schools, too).
tons of harvard econ undergrads work on the street. all else equal, harvard econ would be better than harvard sosc.
I'm sure Harvard Visual & Performing Arts majors could get on the street if they tried. Everyone thinks they're sooooo smart.
And yes. I'm jelly bro...
Science coursework is a prereq to go to med school, econ/finance coursework is not a prereq to work in finance.
Just do what your passions tell you to once you get to Harvard. It's a great school; and you should try not to pigeon hole yourself into x,y,z major even before you get there. Having some ideas is great, but, branch out and take some classes -- then decide. You are very young; you have time.
I am a senior at HYP and majoring in Econ - will be going to GS/MS for full-time. A lot of econ majors I know/friends with are going to top places as well.
@bankbank, maybe you go/went to Harvard too, and if so I'm not trying to pick a fight. But I really disagree with you on "all else equal, harvard econ > harvard sosc." That just was NOT my experience when I was at Harvard. Sure more econ majors ended up on the street, but that's because it's a self-selecting group. That does not mean that econ is inherently a "better" concentration to employers. harvard econ is only better than harvard sosc IF grading were equal. But it's not.
Employers look at GPAs, and you need a high one. It's easier to get a high GPA in sosc. than in econ. That's the bottom line. You demonstrate passion and quantitative proficiency to employers by taking math classes pass/fail (which they won't notice because no one line-reviews your transcript) and by getting seriously involved in some kind of finance extra-curricular.
I'm not kidding when I say the most successful candidates I know of were history/sociology/whatever majors who were on the board of the investment association or Veritas Financial. They took stat, metrics, and/or calculus and linear algebra pass fail and put it on their resumes, and they looked solid. More importantly, NOT majoring in econ makes you less "plain vanilla," and it was cited to me MULTIPLE times that my "straightforward" resume with econ, banking and consulting internships made me "look like everyone else."
If I had to do it over again, I'd have fucking majored in Philosophy.
It seems to me that apprentice7697 is in a better position to answer this question than almost all posters in this thread. He went to harvard, he went through the recruiting process and he was able to get insight into the recruiting process of econ/other peers that went through the same process.
If you really want the easiest time breaking into finance from Harvard then 1) study something you find interesting; 2) preferably study something you can get decent grades in; 3) engage in EC's that display your interest in finance. You are going to Harvard for pete's sake; if you excel in philosophy/history/whatever and have solid EC's I'm sure you can get good internships with hustle.
One of my teachers in high school had a harvard econ degree, just saying.
if you like engineering more than econ, then concentrate in it. but if you'd just be concentrating in it for the sake of going off the beaten path, you'd only be making things unnecessarily hard on yourself. yes, engineering is more "impressive", but i know plenty of harvard econ concentrators doing pretty well for themselves in term of recruiting. if you're worried about lacking quant skills, just concentrate in applied math and do the econ track.
if you don't really like any of the above, you'll still be fine concentrating in pretty much anything else, provided you demonstrate interest in finance early on.
You realize anything you learn in college will not really be applicable to your job and the math in IB/PE doesnt go beyond high school math, so just take the classes youde enjoy and do the best in. I would say a high gpa really matters above all else.
You'd be amazed at how many people really struggle with econ and stats classes. I cant speak for Harvard but Id imagine its not the easiest.
I had to bust my ass in advance math classes but breezed through stats and econ with the opposite experience for many of my peers.
All of this is subjective, if I look at a resume, the major just may change what questions I ask, not immediately yes/no.
At a non-HYP ivy and majored in liberal arts. Good work experience, gpa between 3.5-3.8, and will be working in an at an EB/BB this summer. I took a few Econ courses and just listed Econ as part of my double major on my resume. At a place like Harvard, you have the luxury of majoring in anything you want more so in comparison to other ivies, such as Penn/Cornell. Take a few econ courses, but don't feel pressured to do the Econ major if you dont like it.
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