Harvard Economics or Physics for Finance?
I'm trying to choose a concentration (rising freshman) after having committed to the Harvard class of 2025. (Got in through SCEA). I like both Economics and Physics equally (based on the courses I've taken in high school). Which would be better for banking? (Sorry I can't be specific about which branch. I'm thinking of a more quantitative branch, however.) Does it even matter? Harvard offers the opportunity to do secondary fields as well so I could do something like "Physics Concentration, Economics secondary field." Thank you (and sorry for the numerous parentheses).
P.S: I expect to get quite a few responses about how I shouldn't care about this yet. Please: that doesn't help my question and I'd truly appreciate it if you'd move on to another post in this site if you don't have an answer that directly answers my question. Answering that it doesn't matter is fine.
Nuclear or petroleum engineering, women’s studies, basket weaving, or paleontology would serve you better for banking
Basket weaving: love that
I think it's an actual major at UCSD!
Both are fine.
The correct answer is whichever you’re more interested in. For the purposes of banking, you can major in anything and still get in esp from Harvard. I would take a few Econ courses and a few Physics courses your freshman year and decide which one you want to focus on later. Nobody here can tell you what to do- that has to come from you.
Would you say that’s also true at UChicago?
Physics is better if you want to also consider immediately going to buyside postgrad
Not really, I would say the exact opposite.
YMMV, I'm currently a senior at Y/P and my friends who were physics/CS/math/astrophysics who recruited for buyside FT were much more successful than my econ friends, sample size of ~15, but that certainly may just not be representative. From the way they explained it, most of these places wanted raw brainpower they could mold into finance, and they viewed the hard STEM majors with 3.8s more positively than the Econ majors with 3.8s.
Physics def better for hedge fund but you should make sure you’re smart enough to do well.
Don't choose major for banking. Choose for intellectual curiosity.
If I were you I'd actually double major in both.
Economics and physics are both fascinating on their own. Econ is about understanding the material ($) world. And physics is about understanding the material world.
I went to Harvard for undergrad so I can chime in here. The most important thing is to choose a major (or concentration) that you will do well in. Forget the intellectual curiosity bull shit, you are optimizing for what will get you the highest GPA with the least amount of effort (so you can focus on extracurricular activities)
Extracurriculars are actually important, this might have been just my experience, but during OCR interviews I was often asked many questions about extracurriculars and leadership activities. In fact, I had one memorable interview in which we basically spent 80% of our time talking about The Crimson (Harvard's student-run newspaper) The interviewer who interviewed me (who was kind of a douche tbh) used to be an editor for The Crimson, so we basically talked about that until we were out of time (I did manage to advance to the next round, which I don't think I would have if I was not involved with The Crimson)
It is worth mentioning that most bankers / alums you will meet in the industry will have typically studied econ, so being an econ concentrator will create an instant connection with future interviewers, etc. Another anecdote, when I was going through OCR for junior year summer internships, I was asked during a particular interview how I was enjoying my econ classes and was even asked which professor I had for Ec 1010 Intermediate Micro (a required course that every econ concentrator takes) I actually took Ec 1011 which is a more rigorous/quant-heavy approach, and the interviewer commented something like, "Oh wow, you must be smart, I guess I can skip the brain teasers..."
With physics, you will miss out on the connection, but the positive is that no one will question your intellectual horsepower / ability to do the job, and so you might avoid the silly brain teasers or technicals in interviews.
Regarding secondary fields, I was a computer science secondary and not once did it ever come up in an interview. Nobody cares. By all means, pursue one and list it on your resume, but the truth is that nobody cares.
+1, I went to one of YP & totally agree that almost all of my interviews with alums ended up talking in some part about my extracurriculars
Don't go to Harvard but other Ivy. Take whatever is interesting to you, I don't think econ coursework would be *that* applicable to IB interviews tbh. What is important is reading about business in your free time - FT, WSJ etc. Read books like Margin of Safety and Competition Demystified. And most importantly get to know the kids at Harvard who are going into great careers, join the clubs, etc. This, besides investing in your own knowledge, is probably the most important part. Interviewing for finance is much easier when you know someone at the majority of places you interview. But be yourself, in interviews for banking they're not really looking for a mold, it's all about being someone interesting and seemingly tolerable to work around, while also having the intellectual ability to do the work (which if you're physics at Harvard you can definitely do, as long as you're somewhat interested in it).
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