How important does major matter at a target school?

Hey, so a bit of background on myself - I'm a sophomore at a target school with a 3.7 - I interned at a commercial bank my freshman summer, currently looking for opportunities for sophomore and junior summer - I have to declare a major this semester

So here's my question:

I'm thinking of majoring in computer science, but was curious as to whether BB's and other firms would second guess my technical skills without, say, minoring in finance. I should add I also am part of a finance organization at my school.

I want to drop the finance minor and spend time taking other cool classes (and GPA boosters) and just collapse to a single CS major, but so many people double major or get minors and I'm not sure if it would set me back.

Thanks!

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The thing I would be asking myself if I were you is more around what you are interested in. While not all IB jobs require the traditional “finance” curriculum, the fact that you want to take other classes you find more interesting and want to major in computer science might be a sign that you want to do something other than IB (obviously IB is broad and this isn’t always the case). Anyway, something to think about as you consider your career opportunities.

As for your question, the major you pick is one factor that firms will consider. In general it is used more to gauge your analytical ability and less so direct understanding of finance (at least at the larger firms). So a computer science major will be more than enough to show you have the analytical ability to do the job. You will probably be asked about why you chose this major over others (and things around why you are in the finance club but not majoring in finance) and depending where you end up you might have to do a bit of catch up to brush up on your finance knowledge when starting.

But it won’t be a blocker as far as getting interviews. I would recommend you take some time to figure out what interests you and what career options there are that might closely map to that, as IB and computer science are pretty different (with all the caveats around what division, what your CS curriculum is like, etc).

 

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