Undergrad: Is computer science 'hotter' than a business degree?
I noticed a few tech titans younger siblings are computer science majors (snapchat's kid sister is current CS at Stanford). And most of the summer interns are minoring in computer science — especially gunner Asian kids.
Computer Science is much hotter than a business degree right now and has been since 2008. If you're willing to move to SF/Silicon Valley and you have a CS degree and solid programming knowledge, you can earn a ton and move up quickly. If you are not at one of the massive companies, your compensation will top out in the low-mid 100's, but if you make the jump to Google, FB, Amazon, or Apple you can earn a lot more as a high performer.
What's the motive as a minor? All the kids I know are business majors at targets and I'd est. seemingly half of them are minoring in CS. Isn't it sort of a GPA killer? CS in my day was pretty hard. Seems it could screw you over when it comes time for MBA or law school apps.
Because knowing basic data structures and algorithms means you can pivot into being an engineer fairly quickly and the minor is social proof of that. Doing a CS minor is also proof that you can handle technical tasks well and as more processes become automated/data-driven, showing you have the chops to interface with those systems is valuable.
I wrote a quick app at a tech investing internship that took in data from 8 different sources the firm bought and quickly pulled up all of the info they cared about with a clean, efficient search. Everyone from Managing Partners to associates had the dashboard open 24/7. It took a while to build a clean interface and efficient back-end, but the value added was immediate and obvious (I put my name in the corner of the app to remind people).
Also, if someone is interested in potentially starting their own tech company or in product management, technical knowledge is super valuable. If a founder can build their own minimum viable product early on to gain traction/funding and then bring on an actual engineer, their likelihood of succeeding dramatically improves.
A lot of great paths that aren't directly related to being a software engineer require some knowledge now.
You know what's really hot?
Doing what you enjoy and not giving a flying fuck about what other random people think is hot or not hot
Getting an offer at a large tech firm for an entry level software development job in SV is MUCH easier than getting an offer as a front office analyst at a BB IB in NYC. Particularly if you attend a non-target (SV companies don't care nearly as much about pedigree).
Not to shit on IB or glorify CS at all, but you are seriously underestimating SV salaries. Facebook's starting offer for undergrads is ~$170K (base $105K, avg. bonus ~$18k, equity ~$25K, signing ~$22k).
That being said, large tech companies do not have the work-life balance that many SV companies do... most developers I know work similar hours to me in consulting (60-70).
Household-name tech will, for a new graduate, pay better than banking while only requiring 40-50 hours per week of work. This is fact.
There are two catches, though. One, the skillset required to break into top-tier software firms is legitimately more difficult than the skillset needed to break into investment banking. Some people's brains simply aren't wired to think and reason about code. I've seen dozens of finance / econ kids try to minor in CS, only to get crushed, no matter how many hours they put in, no matter how many TAs they ask for help on each homework assignment. Smart kids, too—they just don't have an innate ability to code.
In short: if you've got a knack for coding, you've got a defensible skillset. That's valuable.
The other catch is that in tech, your compensation will not increase anywhere near the same rate as your peers' will in finance. This isn't necessarily a negative. Would you rather work 40 hours per week for a guaranteed $200k/yr in perpetuity, or would you rather work 60-80 hours per week with some probability of a substantially higher upside? There's no correct answer. The counterpoint to this point, anyway, is that a lot of people either burn out of finance before they can really start earning a killing, or don't even receive any offers to progress upward.
Big tech is a really attractive option, and for good reason. You can make good money while maintaining a legitimate work-life balance and receiving meaningful career advice from higher-ups. But one must ask themselves: how do you feel about the collaborative, slower culture of tech versus the more ruthless, efficient culture of finance? Do you want to do one task 100% correctly, or many tasks 80% correctly? And most importantly: do you actually enjoy getting your hands dirty with the building and debugging processes?
Tech is a better choice for some, and finance is a better choice for some. And my gut is that a lot of people who would have applied for banking jobs are instead gunning for tech, which may be a better fit for them. This is a good thing.