Economics Degree vs Undergraduate Business School

I want to probably pursue something related to business after undergrad (either IB/consulting/quant/trading... not sure yet), and right now I'm trying to pick between UChicago and NYU Stern. I know that UChicago has an Economics and Data Science degree and NYU Stern has a straightforward business school with concentrations in Finance and Computing and Data Science. Therefore, I had a few questions...

a) Does pursuing an economics degree put you at a comparative disadvantage in the business world? How is an economics degree truly different?

b) If I'm pretty sure I want to do business (IB/consulting/quant/trading), but not sure exactly what I want to do in business yet, is UChicago or NYU Stern more preferable?

12 Comments
 

Based on other threads that I’ve read and podcasts that I’ve listened to, if you do half decent in Stern you are basically guaranteed to get an IB offer and it’ll probably be in New York. I really don’t know a lot about UChicago, but if I were in your situation I’d probably go to Stern. Hope that helps

 

UChicago has arguably the #1 program in the world for economics, especially as it relates to finance. It also has a better general rep than NYU.

Pursuing an economics degree does not put you at a disadvantage in the business world, especially if you're at one of the top undergrads in the country, which intentionally doesn't offer a business major. UChicago's differentiator is also that it allows much more flexibility in choosing your coursework than other schools do, so you can take classes at Booth.

 

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