College Major Question

You're welcome to major in art history if you like, but seriously, how hard can econ be?

I was considering majoring in Political Science or Psychology and maybe pairing that with Statistics. My cumulative GPA is good so far (and that is all I'll be putting on my resume probably?), but if I were to major in Econ, my major GPA would be lower than my cumulative which I think would look a little odd.

A follow-up question that I have is whether or not banks look at transcripts before interviews. I've heard that some do and some don't though.

drexelalum11, I'm not quite sure if this is true, but I've been told that relatively speaking, NU Econ tends to deflate the GPA, as Econ is known to be pretty easy at a lot of other universities. Whether or not recruiters care is a different issue.

Usually, no one will see your transcript before the interview (although sometimes you will be asked to bring a copy, but not often). As long as you don't bring up econ, and can do well in stats and your major, you should be alright, but again, just be ready to have a good reason for selecting whichever new major you select whether they know about your former econ major or not - it always helps to speak of your field of interest with interest and enthusiasm.

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Recruiters do not care about relative difficulty of NU's econ program.

If you can go into Winter recruitment with 3.7+ in a major other than econ you should definitely be able to get interviews, assuming you've done everything else right. (Networking, extracurriculars, and previous work experience)

There are tons of Econ majors out there with 3.7+ who don't get interviews because they are lacking in all of the above. Still, make sure you are prepared to answer questions about why you picked your major, and be prepared to demonstrate strong quantitative ability in other ways.

it really depends on what you are doing. remember if you are working in investment banking division that quantitative skills are completely moot.

I suggest you study what you want and get a good gpa. period. psych and polisci both seem like great options, and coupled with a stat minor it may even look more unique/better than a typical econ major.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Philosopher, the reason why I mentioned a need for quantitative skills is because I was under the impression that though it's useless on the job, many banks still expect analysts to be quantitative thinkers. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

Not for IBD/CorpFin. Plenty of english/history/humanities majors from good schools can get there. It looks impressive to have an engineer with a 3.8 want to work in IBD/CorpFin, but Im sure everyone realizes that he is not any more likely to be better than a 3.8 english major (actually the english major would probably be better at analyst level)

For global markets/S&T type stuff displaying some quantitative skills is important though.

While I agree that it's not important to display quant skills in your studies for IB, it is important that the bank thinks you can handle it, which is why I mentioned that you don't want to let them know your poor eco grades and the fact that you dropped the discipline as a major (not that you'd tell them anyway). While quant skills are not essential in your studies, if you take a course that tests those skills, you should do well in it - in other words, from a Target school, at least, it doesn't matter if you major in business, math, or English, but if you go for a quant field you should be able to handle it (I know I'm probably stating the obvious, but I just don't want people thinking that quant skills and courses don't matter at all).

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I wouldn't consider econ a quantitative major or a difficult one. If you're not doing well in it and/or you're not interested in it, you'll have a tough time landing a job and you should consider why you want to get into finance.

Bottome Line: You'll land some interviews (depending on how selective this season is) but you won't get offers.

Econ is considered to be more of a quant/analytical major at NU. I think same applies to UChicago's Econ program as well. I mean, I've been doing well (A's) in my Math courses (linear algebra, multivariable calculus), but I've been getting B+'s in Econ, so that is why I'm a little concerned. I don't think I'll mention what I got in those Econ courses unless asked anyway though. So how does that affect whether or not I get an offer? I'll most likely be applying to sophomore rotational programs.

I think the deadline for MMSS already passed for sophomores. Oh, well... I guess I'll take the intermediate micro/macro courses and see how I do.

I wouldn't say intro econ is a joke and if it is, I failed to find the humor in it. I thought it was painfully tedious and all the lines and graphs shifting around were poorly presented and needlessly confusing. My intro micro and macro classes were about 600 students (500 who had to take it), team taught, split into three sections. Since the profs carefully avoided calculus, I didn't find it rigorous nor particularly objective, especially for the essays on exams. Higher econ at the undergrad level doesn't get much harder than principles- the step function occurs in the first year of grad school- which is why PhD programs in econ prefer math or stats majors over econ majors.

What about a History Major at Cal/UCLA/UMich (one of hte three)? Or should I just major in Econ or Business?