Why is Engineering So Important for MC?

A basic principle behind engineering is abstraction and simplification into models, which you then learn to adapt and modify to simulate problems and create solutions to various situations. Much in the same way, consulting attempts to simplify and model various business processes and operations, and that mindset comes in extremely handy in consulting.

That and programming's rapidly becoming a huge part of cases (worked in MBB for a summer, programmed in VBA, SPSS, SAS, and SQL), and engineering students typically have some background in how to program.

So basically, it's not possible to break into consulting as a finance major since I'll be lacking in problem-solving and programming skills then huh?

I think the skillset of an engineer fits well with consulting like the above poster mentioned...additionally engineering doesn't pay very well for the most part. (Not necessarily immediately but over time because the salaries dont go up that much) which is why i think you find alot of engineers pursuing MC.

I think a decent % of the people that get hired into MBB studied something business related in undergrad, as long as its something quantitative and not something fluffy. I don't think you'd be at a disadvantage to engineers as a finance undergrad, you are just going to have to answer the question why aren't you going into banking instead of why aren't you going to be a programmer at a tech company etc.

The key to consulting interviews is being able to do cases, though you can practice cases I think there is an intrinsic problem solving ability that you have or don't have. On that note, I think engineers tend to be people who have that ability...otherwise they'd really blow at engineering. If you have it, I really wouldn't worry.

Practice cases with MBB alums etc, you'll see if you're good or not that way. (If you can't find any, try Chris's Wall Street Mentors)

sent u a pm

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Yeah i'm an eecs major, so they kinda shafted me with the shitty programming cases. Other interns were wharton huntsmen and jerome fischers who played around with matrices and excel and built decks =P

We had a Brown Eng major, Vanderbilt Math major, a few UT engineering honors people, UMich Ross business majors, etc

About half of my MBB class has studied something quanty (math, engineering, physics) with the latter half having studied something among the social sciences or humanities (with a great bias towards econ, but there are loads of poli sci, english, etc.)

Don't sweat it. You can get in with any major, though you may have to play a bit of catch up in the excel arena etc. just as a math major might have to learn some basic econ to get up to speed.

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urinetroublein my opinion, science, engineering and mathematics majors make the best consultants. or at least better than business, accounting, finance or economics majors. my 2cents

Unless they can't communicate effectively. Half of the job is figuring out the problem, the other half is effectively persuading your case team and stakeholders that you're 1) the company for the job and 2) to listen to your suggestions. During my summer, I saw brilliant math/science/eng majors completely fail because they couldn't stand up in front of their case team and present 5 slides, and I saw way less quant and technical business kids talk their way to a FT offer.