Economics degree. Is it a good choice?

I'm 20 years and am starting community college back up after taking a year long break to help my family grow our family business. I am wondering if I am making a mistake by going into economics instead of something like computer science. I want to work at a hedge fund or asset management firm and wish to start my own one day (so does every other 20 YO I'm aware lmao) however that is my goal. I'm worried economics is too broad of a degree to be able to get into those positions and I'm also worried that computer science will set me up in the development side of these firms instead of the trading/money management side of it. Is economics a good degree? Should I go into economics and add a math or computer science minor? Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope your day is going well.

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Hi,

I studied economics (from BA to PhD), but if your goal is finance, I think a more focused degree toward Finance/Business Management might be more directly applicable. Now, do I think you could do really well with a degree in economics? Yes. It is an excellent discipline and it will teach you a lot about how to understand models and statistics, as well as our eternal drive toward understanding causation.

A Business/Finance degree would be a more direct way to gain the relevant skills (e.g., financial accounting, marketing, etc.) that you'll need. A good compromise would be a Business/Finance major with an Econ minor (with maybe a focus on stats, as Maths can be too broad and as much as I like topology and calculus, it's more important to understand how regressions and confidence intervals work).

The key to a finance career though appears to be getting good solid Internship experience (from what I can glean on this website). So, I'd recommend going to the sub-forums here and seeing what is a more typical path for your chosen career goals. But, education-wise? I think Econ is a good bet, just perhaps not necessarily as your major.

 

Be careful with the advice that your academic advisor gives you. Most of them don't know much and give horrible advice, it's something a lot of professors have to volunteer for and they don't want to do it. A lot of them will have you taking classes you don't need, spending unnecessary money, and having you there too long. Take your general education credits. Your basic College Writing 101 and College Algebra classes. Look at the classes that are required for the schools and programs you want to transfer into and take all those classes. Those classes will basically be your general electives. You probably want to transfer in as a sophomore to give you a better chance at doing internships so find out what the sophomore requirements are. Don't start taking any weird classes at community college that your advisor recommends. Stick to your general education credits and get out fast. Also, take honors courses asap and join PTK if you can.

 

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