Liberal Arts vs. Undergraduate Business
Hi all,
I am currently a Freshman at a target (Georgetown) and am having an incredibly tough time deciding on what school/major to pursue.
I have long held interest in financial markets (I was managing my high school's endowment by the time I was a Junior no cap), so business seemed logical. On the other hand, though I'm not a stiff and only sometimes a tool. Let me extrapolate.
At Georgetown, I had originally been admitted to the McDonough School of Business, where I planned on majoring in International Business/Finance... the usual basically.
However, now that I'm here, I'm starting to realize that finance and accounting really are as painfully dry as as they sound. Meanwhile, I've been having a great time in my poetry/government/economics class, relatively speaking. Outside of the class, I've also managed to land a position with a FinTech Research Group, as well membership in other selective clubs relating to VC/Entrepreneurship.
Eh fuck it im rambling, you guys get the picture. I won't front, I'm in the comma making business. Bottomline, do I choose the dipshit easy route and stay in the MSB, follow the straight and narrow until it leads me to a BB Gig. Or do I take a risk, switch to the College of Arts and Sciences, and get liberal artsy and fake intellectual with a double major in Gov/Econ and a philosophy minor.
My heart's telling me to pull a dead poets' society here, but my brain sees the Career report for the Business School and the ease of the recruiting process there, and it ensnares me like a Whartonite staring at a line of coke.
Thoughts?
Edit: Shoutout to the anonymous analyst who put me in my place. I deserved that. Apologies for being an egotistical child, rather than a right proper gentleman like yourself.
I don't get the hate for OP here, who tf enjoyed their accounting course? My favorite courses have been history and science at university. Anyone who says they truly enjoyed their accounting or corporate finance modules is a major geed.
To extend on that, who really enjoys the work they do as an IB analyst? Is aligning logos and spreading comps really what you all want to be doing rn?
To OP: I have no idea how Georgetown recuiting works - at some schools, like NYU or UPenn being in the business school is very important for OCR. However, at some other schools like UVA it's not as important. I have no clue how it's like for Georgetown but I'd ask your career center and alumni/seniors to get a better idea. Good luck.
No dog in this fight however, most knowledgeable people will tell you Accounting way harder / more rigorous degree than finance. Remeber those weedout classes. Imagine most of your classes like that. The math itself is easy. So many concepts to know and apply. The 3 financial statements are accounting functions, not finance functions and those are as basic as accounting gets (and almost as deep as finance - IB - gets)
Fast forward to the professional world. TAS DD way more rigorous than IB. They go way deeper in to transactions where IB just scratches the surface and moves on. Now personally I think fiannce would be a lot more enjoyable. But there's a reason most CFOs come from an accounting background and many of them started out at B4 (B8 as it was way back when).
Why can't you balance both-- do a double major in finance and your preferred other major?
That's what I did. I'm currently in my final year at a similar school and am going to be working in BB investment banking upon graduation. I see investing as an intellectually rigorous exercise (which is where I want to be) and can draw numerous parallels between investing and the research, writing, and thesis-crafting I do in my humanities major (granted I often take economic/social/political approaches in my research).
I'm a big proponent of balance and framing. If you're able to apply the frameworks and perspectives developed in your liberal arts major to finance, then you can frame finance as something rewarding for you. If you're good at what you do, then I believe that perspective can be incredibly beneficial. That's a win-win compromise.
I will say that most of the people that I see do double majors in finance and something more artsy aren't genuinely passionate about their artsier major and only do it because they think its intellectually stimulating or fun. I see that as far less constructive. Only do the second major if you're (a) talented at it and (b) passionate about it, because otherwise I don't think you will really realize its benefits once you move along in your career.