Econ+Philosophy Double Major

How useful is philosophy as a double major with economics? I'm in a position where I could double major in philosophy or minor in math/stats? Would this help me in a better chance in getting a job over another candidate in the business field mainly finance and by how much? I'm enrolled in UIUC and am strongly focusing on GPA but this option just opened up and I don't know if I should take it. Should I go for philosophy double major or math/stats minor?

18 Comments
 

Unless you are interested in possibly going to Law school some day and doing corporate law, then I would suggest minoring in math or stats (make sure you can still keep a really high GPA). Oh and always....Network, Network, Network

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Do Math/Stats. You can do philosophy on your own time once you graduate.

Every single new analyst on the trading desk here has a major in math/cs/eng....and we aren't even a quant heavy shop.

In summation, do math.

 
Best Response
john1021How useful is philosophy as a double major with economics? I'm in a position where I could double major in philosophy or minor in math/stats? Would this help me in a better chance in getting a job over another candidate in the business field mainly finance and by how much? I'm enrolled in UIUC and am strongly focusing on GPA but this option just opened up and I don't know if I should take it. Should I go for philosophy double major or math/stats minor?

Philosophy is one of the best majors there is. Sometimes I wish i doubled in Phil/Math and ditched econ. Having the math minor is really good though (it was one of my minors). Can you double in phill/econ and still minor in math? There may be cross listed courses (econometrics between econ/math, mathematical logic between phill/math) to make it easier.

 

minor in stats would be the most useful. 95% of the math that is useful on wall street is stats.

That said, I think some people are impressed with double majors (I am at least). Makes it seem like you didn't struggle to complete your major requirements and in fact did a second.

The answer to the question depends most on what you like to study and how many classes/how much work it would take.

 

Like everyone said, you can do philosophy in your idle time. I would go with CS if I were you. I did econ and let me tell you Im getting fucked in the real world.

If you do Econ you wont learn anything new, which you cant from books on Amazon. After doing Math classes, I couldn't do the higher levels because they were too fucking boring.

Finance is cool but dont do it if you cant keep a killer GPA.

And yea fuck accounting.

 

Well it turns out I could double major in math or stats also. So do you guys recommend doing one of those with economics? I don't mind doing math. I took all of calculus and it came to me easily. As far as stats, it takes a one less class to major in that so not that big of a difference. Or should I just say screw it and just get econ and a math or stats minor and get the highest GPA possible- 3.6+?

 

I say go for it. You know Patrick Swayze's character in Road House had a Ph.D in philosophy? Based on my comp set, I imagine your life after completing a philosophy degree will be much like the below.

Bad. Ass.

 

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