Best minor for IB
Incoming non diversity oos freshman at Ross. I'm aware ross has good placement but theres a ton of internal competition leading to some ppl striking out. My top 2 choices for what to minor in are accounting and philosophy.
If I do accounting it'd be pretty easy for me to get a good understanding for technicals when I'm prepping for ib interviews, but I feel that I could do this regardless of whether I'm minoring in accounting or not.
I've done debate in high school so I really see the importance of argumentation and being a good critical thinking which I think phil would definitely help in, and another reason for me to choose this would also be to help me stand out from everyone else gunning for top BBs and EBs from Ross, I doubt a lot of ppl are going to choose philosophy (call me out if I'm wrong though).
Any thoughts or advice?
Coming from someone who has an accounting minor (switched from major after realizing some of the classes were pointless for what I wanted to do ex: taxes), I'd go with the philosophy minor. This may be controversial, but the accounting you learn in class isn't the exact same accounting as you do in finance/technical prep, this is because you are viewing it from a different lens. While it is very good to do to get your basics and fundamentals down, looking back, I'd have a different minor and do something that is a good talking point/more interesting in my opinion.
When I say lens, I mean doing it from a finance perspective vs doing it from an accounting perspective. Also, worth noting that your accounting experience will be different for every school.
Astrophysics minor
Literally no need to do any finance related minor. Your prep can easily be done outside of school and most courses in school don't apply properly to technicals. You're better off doing something more interesting—ideally a double major with something like philosophy, politics, cogsci, some science, etc etc. Realistically any courses will not be instrumental in your thinking b/c you will only have taken 1 year of classes before recruiting, but if you have an interesting double major (or minor maybe) like neuroscience or chemistry or art, you will be asked about it and can be a good talking point/good differentiation point.
TLDR - avoid the accounting, try to do a double major (can always move down to a minor later), and go for something unique.
Yeah this probably makes me look bad but I just found out Ross doesn't even have an accounting minor...
Either ways I'm thinking of just talking to people in niche minors and figuring out what would be best in terms of both being easy for my GPA while also somewhat interesting. Double majoring is almost out of the question, most people strongly recommend against that because its way too many courses and would hurt me when I'm trying to recruit for IB. Would you say philosophy is an "interesting" major to a recruiter?
Philosophy is interesting. The best way to go after a minor you want to study is pick one that you are interested in and can talk about. Like be able to say WHY you chose it, something about it (a fact or story), be prepared to meet someone who minored/majored in it so maybe they ask you, and just make it sound interesting.
Beyond that it couldn't matter less what you pick. I've seen people do neuroscience, computational bio, art history, etc. They liked them, could talk about their interest in them, tell stories, and relate to someone who knew a lot more about the field.
Philosophy - good roi post baking as well
Thanks for your opinion, why do you think it would be helpful post IB as well? Is it just the things it teaches you?
Helpful for investing skills imo and developing own unique viewpoint/ opinions
Minor in something that interests you. Minoring in accounting won't make much of a difference for positioning yourself apart from the crowd, but it can help strengthen your own toolkit if its something you are actually interested in. It likely won't be material for recruitment.
Since you mentioned interest in debate - is there something perhaps legal-related you can study? While you see less of this at the analyst level, as you move up in a bank or move over to Corp Dev or PE, there is a part of the job where you send/review NDAs, Engagement Letters, LOIs, and of course purchase agreements at the later stages of a deal with reps and warranties. Obviously there's in-house counsel to handle a lot, but you can get some kudos on your deal team if you're able to actually uncover the teeth within a contract and understand certain clauses before it gets sent over.
If you can do something that directly has to do with understanding how to navigate contract terms while also getting to debate for fun in coursework, you should see if you could go that route. Part of the minor coursework may even have ethics courses/philosophy in it.
I'm leaning towards phil as of right now, I anyways have many accounting classes as a BBA student so its not a big deal to me.
About the legal question - do you mean picking a minor like politics? UMich does have a minor called "Law, Justice, and Social Change" but franky I don't care much about helping other people, so it doesn't sound that interesting to me. I might consider looking into minoring in public policy though, but do you have more information for why studying legal-related content would be a good idea? Just a little confused since I don't have that much background in this field
Well as a banker, this is a client-servicing job. Your team is getting paid to do whatever founder-CEOs/boards ask of you so you may want to re-position your mindset that you are actually trying to go into the business of helping other people whether you enjoy it or not lol. There will often be requests that seem pointless, but because there's a fee, you have to just do whatever is asked quickly.
Jokes/jabs aside, taking a brief look at the UMich minor catalog, the Law & Society minor can maybe help service some value-add, but you of course should talk with a counselor to see if it makes sense for you or not.
From a philosophical perspective, you're being hired to help facilitate an output that will definitely change entire careers and salaries for employees (positively and negatively) and this extends to families of workers when thinking beyond CIMs, models, and fees. Much is of course beyond your control and discretion to those who sit on the cap table pre and post-transaction.
The value-add of having at least an elementary understanding of legal starts with the terms on engagement letters, the terms of exclusivity arrangements post-LOI, and the final stages of diligence towards closing of an M&A process with purchase agreements.
There is significant back-and-forth that goes on identifying liabilities between buyers and sellers before a transaction closes and legal counsels depending on the transaction, firm, and buyers often delegate bankers as the middle-men to communicate changes back-and-forth between parties. Having a leg-up above other junior bankers that only understand financial statements and valuation, can set yourself apart. You'll often be tasked to take notes on live calls and summarize what's being asked from legal (although AI can help alleviate some of this), but sometimes there's tight deadlines outside of normal business hours and be requested even as a senior analyst or associate to hop on a call and share minor revisions on v12 of a document with the lawyers (if the VP/MDs are busy with other things).
Outside of this value, if you're looking to become a coverage banker - having expertise in something like a CS minor for TMT can also be leveraged to better understand product offerings.
Minor In gender and sexuality studies.
On a serious note would this not help me stand out? Or would recruiters just think I'm retarded
Literally follow the status quo when people tell you to just minor something you are interested in. It's a unique experience in college and my most enjoyable classes were my minor.
I started off college minoring in economics for similar reasons as you right now but found it pointless since nobody GAF about your minor and minored in South Asian studies instead and it was 100x better. I learned a lot about my roots and learned things I would have never learned otherwise.
Bottom line, just do something you are genuinely interested in and make sure you have the time for it as well because you don't want grades to slip over a minor either.
Philosophy minor sounds great until you realize what kind of courses you have to take and the work that goes into them. Many of the grade distributions are rather unfavorable in the upper level (300,400) classes. Use freshman year as a chance to bang out some of your distribution requirements and take a variety of classes while doing this. More than likely something will spark your interest (CS for me) and then you can pursue the minor over the next 3 years. Go Blue.
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