Working with Business Majors can at times be frustrating
I'm not shitting on business majors, but coming from an Economics background and now working in IB, I just find business majors (whom I have come to know are actually the majority of who work in IB) to be kind of square?
They're kind of boring and outside of corporate finance can't really think granularly. I have worked with a VP putting together a piece of analysis on energy prices and inflation and their effect on some instrument and was pretty shocked that they had no idea that energy prices could lead to inflationary pressure? Was asked to source etc., something that is the most foundational of economic theory. Do they not read the news or something- I was really taken aback by having to substantiate something that simple.
I also generally don't understand why someone would study business or something like that at university because it just seems so vocational? In terms of it is clearly just a career door opener, rather than something you study because you are academically interested in it. I studied what I wanted because I had an academic interest and pursued a career thereafter. I didn't let ideas of what I wanted to do influence what I studied at university, that's kind of backwards. That's also kind of why the people I've found most interesting, generally did not study finance/business, whilst the biggest hardos/square people did.
Does anyone else have a similar experience?
It seems like you're expressing frustration with the intellectual diversity and depth of some colleagues in IB, particularly those with business backgrounds. Based on the most helpful WSO content, this sentiment isn't uncommon. Many individuals from non-business majors, such as economics, philosophy, or other liberal arts, often bring a different perspective to the table, which can sometimes clash with the more vocational, career-focused approach of business majors.
However, it's worth noting that business majors often excel in areas like corporate finance, deal structuring, and understanding the practicalities of the industry. While they may lack depth in certain theoretical or macroeconomic concepts, their skill set is often tailored to the immediate demands of IB roles. This is why firms value a mix of backgrounds—each brings unique strengths.
If you're finding it challenging to work with colleagues who may not share your academic curiosity, it might help to view it as an opportunity to bridge gaps. Sharing your knowledge on topics like inflationary pressures or energy price dynamics could not only enhance team output but also foster mutual respect for differing skill sets. After all, IB thrives on collaboration and leveraging diverse expertise.
For a deeper dive into intellectual rigor and career paths, you might find this WSO thread insightful: Do any of you feel like you've had an intellectual decline after starting college because of majoring in business? (url: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/investment-banking/economic-consu…). It touches on similar themes of academic interest versus vocational study.
Sources: Economic Consulting Q&A - Past experience at major firms, Why Investment Banking? Sample Answers, Do any of you feel like you've had an intellectual decline after starting college because of majoring in business?, Private Wealth Management/Private Banking Guide for Associates, Real Estate Investment Banking
Every individual I've met with an economics background is an insufferable, arrogant, condescending know-it-all. Your story checks out.
Let me guess your YouTube home page is just EconplusDal vids
What do you mean you cannot fathom why anyone would study something purely for a career? Not all of us have the financial luxury of studying purely out of academic interest. Some of us need to focus on getting a job when we graduate.
Such a privileged take.
It's not a financial privilege thing, it's a mind set thing. I have student loans.
Don't think other commenters realize how much this all differs between N America and UK educations
Thanks for your input. It's exactly this, I just found a lot of these people to be square, and very short sighted in their approaches.
Another example, potential policy impacts. I used various economic research to suggest inflation will go increase in the medium term and built analysis around it. It was all scrapped because "we can't say what is going to happen", which is fair enough, but it's not like I was guessing - everything was grounded in economic theory and research papers. But it was all sanitized/removed for surface level "this is happening" comments that I found to be completely useless because our clients aren't stupid, what is the actual point in just saying what is happening now and may happen in such a short timeframe? It's pretty frustrating.
More frustrating is it when these people seem to be completely oblivious to macroeconomic dynamics behind sector and geographic performance.
Edit: agreed on the jargon point. All this talk about buck this buck that, as an example. I don't get why they don't talk normally?
Economics is equally vocational
in my experience the best bankers have studied something like classics or history or even math / physics.
Econ is not vocational lol, people who major in econ over finance/business tend to be actually interested in econ. Reputable econ programs are hard, and if you want to keep your GPA up, why would you choose it if you weren’t interested?
Because you weren’t intelligent enough to study the classics or math
I prefer the humanities, math or pure sciences
i won’t hold a social sciences (other than economics) or engineering degree against you
I will be biased against anyone with economics or business
I don't agree that economics is vocational and it's wrong to group economics with business when economics is, at its core, research-focused.
Pseudo science
As someone who also majored in Econ, they are both idiotic majors looking back. When asked, I always recommend a stem major to students/younger people since Econ and business teach literally 0 valuable skills for the workforce anyways. Whenever my desk interviews, we always prefer stem majors since the finance/econ is always learned on the job anyways. I do agree Econ is better than finance since at least there are more stats classes and slightly more critical thinking is required, but looking back, they both really are a complete waste of time. There is nothing I learned in school that I use in work that I couldn’t directly learn in about 1-2 weeks anyways, so you might as well major in cs or some stem degree that gives a hard skill or backup job and just continue to apply to finance jobs. This method worked for plenty of my friends, and they ended up with both finance jobs and a hard skill set/technical skills. TLDR - As an Econ alumni, neither finance nor Econ are good or necessary majors.
I think there is a misunderstanding, or a misalignment of priorities. I don't dispute that Economics is not useful for IB, I don't claim it is. I just commented that I thought people who majored in things other than Business/finance aren't so square in their thinking and are less dull.
This is funny but any halfway decent Business program will require an Econ class that would teach this. You can't generalize this to all biz majors.
I’m an astrophysicist. Super relevant obviously. Come chill with the pure breds
I’m a bit drunk but this has to be one of the top 10 weirdest things I’ve read.
OP: “I’ve met xyz and therefore all business bla bla is like this”. Wtf?
No I didn’t study business.
Unironically, the MDs who major in random shit tend to be the big rainmakers. Also see it in a lot of PE partners, just absolute random majors. We're talking history or philosophy here not econ or business. I don't think major matters much or at all, to be honest. A lot of the senior PE partners or rainmaker MD's are not Stern cookie-cutter business grads but like some random humanities majors who went to good schools, doesn't mean that humanities majors are better or anything but perhaps more so a reflection of the fact they were much more common back in the day.
I have also seen random humanities major MDs be very technical and business major MDs be not. I have seen business major MDs who are super smart on the econ side of things and econ majors who are not. Just all person-dependent, style-dependent, and strength-dependent.
How much of this is selection bias? Kids from rich backgrounds can major in random majors because family support. They also tend to have family connections that help them land deals and jobs down the line
Agree but not for the reasons you think. The reason why random major md’s are such rainmakers is cos they had to work super hard to get in and stay in unless from a rich background. Investment banking is not exactly spoken about a lot in history majors or something like that so you really really had to want to do it. Then at md level most people have also already left the industry thus when you do meet that random major md they tend to be amazing
I don't know you but I can already tell what a douche you are
Totally agree. Econ majors are the epitome of true intellect especially in the complicated world of finance. I remember in college me and a few Econ buddies would get in a couple of bathrobes sip some wine and watch Jerome Powell for hours. Man those were the days.
what
Can you not read what r u confused about
IB doesn't value critical thinking – why would they value it. I can understand your pain as someone who enjoyed self-studying economics & advanced financial mathematics in the most nerdish possible way/motivation.
Congrats on Econ
Yet another analyst 1 has cracked the code to finance…
Philosophy major here, we’re all retarded
Thank you for the laugh econ bro.
Most economic education, especially undergraduate economics, teaches so little "basic" or "fundamental" theory (compared to "applied" theories) that actually describe how the real economy works. You are trying to flex your economics education because of your academic interest in it and your ego. Yet your entire understanding of economics is predicated on an inaccurate understanding of how the economy actually works. This is like a blind person flexing on another blind person how they have really good hearing.
It is hilarious.
(edits made for grammar)
I genuinely hope for your sake that this is bait lolol.
99.9% of undergraduate economics majors leave college with a command of econ on par with my left testi....uh...toe. undergrad econ is so divorced from technical economics that you're better off majoring in math than econ if you want to pursue a PhD
Congratulations on knowing the formula for aggregate demand (lol do you?!?!) and the grade school level trivial macro they put in banking interview study guides. You are Adam Smith reborn.
I graduated summa cum laude in economics and I know fuck all about economics. Perhaps this is dunning kruger in action?
for the sake of your career/personal life, excise whatever possessed you to say this publicly like a tumor. Its no bueno lol.
It isn't only that undergraduate economics (edit: is) divorced from any technical level of understanding.
Outside of literally ~5 schools, an undergraduate simply can't even learn descriptively accurate "fundamental" / "basic" economic theory in their classes. Given that the only school in the UK that teaches descriptively accurate "fundamental" / "basic" economic theory at the undergraduate level doesn't even teach this in the econ program, this econ bro is even worse. He doesn't even know how flawed his understanding of economics actually is
If you actually read my post (second paragraph), main gripe was with how I found business students to be hardos because they spent their entire higher education curating their courses and opportunities solely for finance/investment banking/PE, and how this in turn makes them hardos/square/uninteresting compared to Arts/Science students/people who did an academic degree.
I'm sorry, but I just don't think Accounting or similar is a serious degree and is not the purpose of university.
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