Would a Master of Arts degree negatively affect my career?
Many target school students do just fine in finance with undergraduate degrees in unrelated humanities fields. But what if one also has an MA in that field--and graduates in four years like everyone else? I'm an incoming undergrad at a target and I'm interested in a BA/MA track; if I graduate in four years and follow the recruiting timeline like every other BA student, would having an advanced degree in, say, English literature, harm my career or be a red flag on a resume? I plan on dual-majoring in economics and English at the undergraduate level in addition to pursuing a masters' in English.
It depends on what field you’re interested in. For ER it might look ok. For most other fields, it would probably be better if you dual majored in finance, CS, statistics or something.
It sounds funky but MBB should be possible. Get good internships to prove you want this. Excel in the internships.
Also, this sounds like a schedule with a lot of classes. Getting a top GPA should be a goal over taking more classes to get useless degrees.
You know the answer to this but you’re looking for someone to validate your poor life choice.
Which btw I’m not going to do.
Ok, everyone is shitting on you because they've never been in this position.
To give you my background, I did econ + hard science (CS/Physics/Math/Engineering) at a HYPSW target with a M.S. in the STEM field, all in 4 years.
Now to talk about you, I see two thing's people seem to be criticizing here. The first is your choice in undergraduate majors and the second is your choice in doing the M.A.
To speak to the first, if you are going to an actual top target school (which I assume you are), Econ + English is a completely fine major combination. Hell, I know kids who got into IB just with various History, English, PoliSci majors at my target. Having a more quantitative and directly applicable major like econ at your target is more than enough. The double major will just make you stand out and you do not need anything more technical than an econ major to pursue a career in Finance.
Second of all, regarding the M.A., WSO has this absolutely dogshit, anti-intellectual view that you should only use education as a means to an end and you should not study or spend any extra effort for your own enjoyment as a student and an intellectual. People are saying stuff like "don't do any extra work for a useless degree". This is wrong. It's not how the real world operates and it really shouldn't be, because then you would have 500 finance major hardos with the exact same background who have no intellectual curiosity and only want to do the minimal work. This isn't to say that you shouldn't learn the technicals and other skills that finance majors learn for a successful career in business, but you should also spend time learning what you enjoy. In short, no employer will care that you did an M.A. in 4 years along with your dual major at a target. In fact, many might be impressed with this qualification as a student.
It's funny watching non-target finance majors look down upon liberal arts when their field and studies are a fucking joke compared to hard sciences.
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