Happy Friday all,
I just have a general inquiry regaring majors in comparison to others. I have hear success stories of Art and English majors becoming bankers, and whatnot, but I am curious as to how majors line up ON AVERAGE.
I am an Economics major, Stats Minor...and I have to compete with Finance & Accounting majors for jobs. Although 3 completely different lines of specialization, there are defnitely overlapping topics. I find that with my Econ major, I have a better understanding of the markets, market behaviors, reactions, and history.
However, am I still at a disadvantage compared to say an Accounting major? Sure, I can't compute the fair value of an unsecured piece of machinery 12 years ago using accelerated amortization and slap that somewhere on an income statement and then make business decisions, but I possess a strong background with fundamental analysis and feel that it will fare just as well. Or compared to a Finance major, I did not learn how to compute the DuPont forumla and use BlackScholes to create a riskless portfolio or learn 28 different financial ratios, but I do know what is important to use in some valuations.
So...in your opinion, which major do you think is most important overall...both personal and professional. As you can tell, I am surely doubting the merits of being an Economist...so I'm hoping some of you can persuade me as to why Econ ain't half bad.
Thanks guys,
Your major matters less and less as the caliber of your school increases. That said, as a humanities major you should probably be able to show interest in the financial markets even if you are from a top school.
Do you have room for some extra classes, and/or can you take summer classes at a community college? That might help: an intro to accounting (financial goes over the three statements, which you'll need to learn) and an intro to finance (time-value, how risk is quantified, basics of investments) might prove helpful.
If you go to a target school, you should do the hardest major/courseload possible and do well in it (you can get away with much less but this is to maximize your chances). If you don't go to a target school, you should do finace & accounting. If you don't go to a target school and choose econ, you should have a really good gpa, like 3.8+, and take relevant finance/accounting courses on the side in addition to your major requirements
Nonsense. If your only goal from your education is to get a "good" job, get the highest GPA you can in a not completely ridiculous mmajor. I have a post somewhere about the best ways to maximize your GPA, at least in the context of the job search.
I'm just a junior (pure) economics major at a target, so I can't speak as to how well each major will serve you once you enter the job world full-time. However, I can speak from experience in terms of getting an internship at at top BB while competing as an econ major with people from an extremely well-regarded business school (take a hint from my screen name)
Unfortunately, I must admit that pursuing a pure economics degree does put you at a disadvantage in several areas. Probably the one thing that kept me from receiving more job offers was the fact that my theoretical knowledge of economics has little direct application in finance and accounting. Employers expect economics majors (at least from my vantage point) to compensate for their lack of practical knowledge. If you don't explicitly do this, then you are at a disadvantage. English and art majors don't seem to have the same standard applied to them quite so rigorously (just an observation, can't speak from experience on that one)
Economics is an extremely challenging subject because it is so theoretical / math-based. Yet you are likely going to be held to a higher GPA standard than finance / accounting majors. Don't expect to get far in the world of recruitment with a sub par (i.e.
Not true.
Banking isn't about "on average". It has been and will continue to be very selective. It is easier to explain that you are more prepared as a finance/accounting major but it is not the end all and be all. I was an economics major at a non-target, and was at the top of my training class having only taken one finance class and a little bit of accounting.
Most schools teach accounting for auditors. They make you run through debits and credits. Are you going to run make a table of debits and credits in banking? of course not. What you will be doing is removing the accounting from the financial statements.
You need to be smart and hard working and be able to show it. You can use that to get you the rest of the way. Many accounting/finance majors end up working at one of the major accounting firms, just having that major doesn't mean you can get into banking.
Also, many top targets, Harvard as an example don't have finance or accounting. Economics is as close to business as it gets.
I meant from an application standpoint. Maybe "useless" is too strong of a word, but I stand by my original contention that economics is, in many ways, not as applicable in the real world unless you have advanced training. It's simply too complex and broad of a subject to cover over 2 years worth of major classes.
Nonetheless, its still a fascinating major and I'm not totally regretful of my decision to pursue it. I just wish in hindsight I had done finance too.
I agree with most of the comments. Thanks for the input.
Because my GPA didn't make the cut-off for business school (I started pharmacy school freshman year)...my 2 years after i have around a 3.7+...so I pretty much had to go for Econ/Statistics.
I sometimes do feel that the Finance/Acct kids have the upperhand because they have a more "practical" knowledge about certain areas...but then again, Accounting bores me. Furthermore, I believe that there are certain aspects that one simply can't learn out of a textbook...and I hope that being an Econ major I can learn more about the markets/better understanding than some of the Finance/Accounting kids. I just tell myself that there are 3 different disciplines with their respective positives/negatives. It's just when it comes to recruiting, the Fin/Acct outweigh Econ...but when it comes to practical, common-sense, intelligent knowledge, I would say my Econ background has proved much more useful than the DuPont Equation.
If your school offers Finance/Accounting, you're definitely at a disadvantage when it comes to recruiting. If your school doesn't offer it (ie. most of the Ivies), you're not.
How do you answer: "Why didn't you major in Finance when your school offers it?"
I started off Pharmacy and did not have the same opportunity to enter Business School with the rest of the kids. However, since the business school is quite inflexible, and therefore were required to take classes such as Marketing and Management, I felt that I would have more options persuing an Economics degree. I have taken many classes such as Financial Economics, Capital Markets, as well as Futures and Options. Furthermore, I am a statistics minor so I have exposure to analysis and data extrapolation. While I may not be specialized in Finance related topics, or know the exact method to book a machine purchased over 10 years ago onto a company's balance sheet, I have been able to learn about fundamental market behaviors and general trends. This is more useful, in my personal opinion. Also, do companies not offer training to every analyst, regardless of major at your firm, etc...
Also throw in a "If I am interested and wish to persue Finance, I know that I can enter a Masters program as well."
That would be pretty much my response...
EDIT: Given my current circumstances, would you recommend that I complete a DealMaven course? It isn't to learn just banking, but rather to complete over the summer during my internship to obtain a better gist of the Finance/Accounting world?
Thanks for the input everyone.
Again, EDIT: Given my current circumstances, would you recommend that I complete a DealMaven course? It isn't to learn just banking, but rather to complete over the summer during my internship to obtain a better gist of the Finance/Accounting world?
Would DealMaven provide me a fairly decent background with the important, fundamental, technical information or am I better off styfing out of textbooks?
I never felt like I was at a disadvantage as an economics major. However, I was also a finance minor and took a year of general accounting, so I'm sure that offset some of the discrepancy some people may be seeing. In general, I found I got a TON fewer technical questions than some of my finance/accounting friends I knew going through the process, but maybe I just got lucky.
UPGRADE your resume (if you haven't done so already).
What I mean is, make sure somewhere on your resume you highlight the relevant finance and math/statistical courses that you've taken to compliment your economics degree. This helps show your direct interest in finance and highlights the development of your "numerical" skills.
That should alleviate some of the pressure (not all) that you feel from competing with finance majors (forget accounting) before you sit down for an interview....but generally speaking, as an economics major you are not at a disadvantage when applying for banking jobs vs these groups (tho maybe s&t truthfully). You have only to visit the career section of many bulge bracket banks and see economics listed as a preferred major to confirm that. Now depending on your gpa and school...your overall dis/advantage varies as Im sure you know.
One other important thing to keep in mind so as to put this thread in perspective...banks train their analysts in general finance/accounting once you're hired. This allows them to be less concerned about getting hung up on specific majors vs making sure they hire the best talent available (ie, that history degree student from harvard working M&A at MS).
Definitely agree on highlighting any technical skills you've picked up during interviews and math/finance classes you've taken at school.
As for DealMaven, if you have the $600 to afford it and the free time to play with it, then go for it. I would hardly say it's a requisite though because as an econ major they're not going to go extremely in depth during an interview into how to build a model. Mostly I just got high level questions like 'how would you put together a simple DCF and how would you arrive at the discount rate to use?' Nothing super specific like building sensitivity analysis into a model or how specifically to do it in Excel.
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