Yet another thread about majors.

I'm coming to the point where I really need to pick a major. I'm pretty much deciding between Accounting w/ some finance courses (but not a minor) or Finance w/ a minor in Economics. My initial intention was to go the finance route but college advisors and some other people have told me that accounting is a much better and prestigous degree. I'm interested in both so I really don't know which to pick. I have no intentions of getting a CPA so at times I think an accounting major is not worth it. On the other hand I've been told a finance degree is only offered at "cheap state schools" (which I guess is where I'm at, although BofA and ML recruit here) and is not very impressive. The career path I want to take is the traditional 2 years IB stint, then b-school, then pe, and hopefully one day start my own shop. Am I thinking this over to much? Any advice is appreciated.

8 Comments
 

both are good, I personally went with finance, but if you want to do the IB part of finance, I think Accounting is actually the better major.

An accounting major can do Finance major jobs, but a finance major can't do accounting jobs.

 
HokieAnalystIf only accounting classes werent so fucking mind numbing...
actually from all the accounting guys I know, they say only the basic accounting classes are mind numbing, later in the curriculum its much better
 

accounting all the way, Yes, it's mind numbing, but having a good grounding is invaluable. Finance at school is one thing, but if you get into IB you'll get a good training program and will pick up the rest on the job.

 

I went with a MIS (Management Info Systems) concentration in a Business Administration major. I find it a lot more interesting than accounting (accounting is boring beyond comprehension) or finance but some people find it harder since there is a lot of programming and working with databases etc. I say do whatever you will get the highest grade in (which usually means whatever interests you the most). Don

 

Thanks for all the responses. I'm a junior so I've taken accounting and finance courses. I was think along the same lines of aspiringmonkey, about accounting being able to get a finance job but not vice versa. However, I know for a fact I do not want an accounting job. Do b-schools look down upon an accounting major w/o a cpa?

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