West Point Major
All, I am currently a freshman (plebe) at West Point and am trying to decide between majoring in economics or business management. I like econ but am worried about the math side, as I'm not too good at calculus, but I do like the other courses in the major. Business management seems much easier to me (therefore higher gpa) but I feel it has less credibility. My goal right now is to graduate and be an Army officer, but I am highly motivated to do something in investment banking after, however I'm unsure of which route to take. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Generally Finance and Economics are listed as top undergraduate majors, perhaps accounting. I would lean to those over the more general Business Administration. You will serve time in the Army after graduation and enter your chosed civ career field with 4 to 5 years of military experience. You might have a chance to pursue a MBA (although probably part time and not at top tier school) while on active duty. Have you closely researched the math requirements for the econ degree? The fact you were accepted to a service academy shows you are "no slouch" academically and can handle stressful situations, so probably you can handle the course work. Should ECON be too challenging what options will you have to change majors down the road?
I really appreciate the comment, unfortunately it is very difficult to change majors here after the first two years so you kind of become locked in. I think I'm going to roll with econ because of the quant skills, as those will be a lot tougher to learn in a management track.
Personally if I had to choose between the two I would say economics would be better for ib I just don’t believe business management would prepare u for the ib as well as concepts you would pick up in Econ. Again personal opinion.
go with Econ. IMO it’s much more interesting and you can go through most of it with only basic partial differentiation and integration. And honestly going through the pain of doing the math will make you much more confident in the future
I had Cs and Ds in all my math classes prior to college and picked Econ. Had a great teacher for one of my classes and he just explained the math really well, after that, it seemed pretty easy. I would go for Econ, it is an interesting major and you can definitely pick up on the math along the way.
Don’t think there any ‘quant’ skills to learn in Econ. I don’t mean to say it’s not hard, quantitative, or interesting to learn, but I really don’t think there’s application in the quant skills you learn in that classroom environment. There’s going to be some crossover, yes, but I’d caution you to think less of how you’ll be able to apply what you learn haha. For Econ knowledge and interesting stuff there’s nothing preventing you from getting a minor or taking Econ classes for fun with a business major. Something to think about :)
econs a bitch and you're prob gonna be very busy with other stuff. honestly dont think econ vs bus mgmt. will play much of a difference compared to a 3.3gpa vs. 3.7gpa. advanced micro econ classes weighed my gpa down.
congrats on getting into west point
Just as a point of reference, I start BOLC on Thursday. I went to a target school, did ROTC, branched infantry. Might want to go into finance after the Army.
Major in economics over business management. I would not make any of your education decisions based on thinking you might go into banking later. The same way accessions works for branching, it won't really matter what you studied if you wanna do banking because you're likely going to get your MBA as a transition.
Also, if you can find the time to chat with West Pointers at good business schools who considered IB, I would try to chat with them. I have found a plurality of them want to go into banking, but veer away from it due to the fact many of them finished company command before business school. They go from a job where they have a lot of responsibility to being an associate where it's just grinding out work with little to no responsibility.
TLDR: major in econ; focus on getting grades at West Point; don't worry about IB right now as you will likely get your MBA to pivot into finance
Was in your exact shoes a little bit ago (am now out). Do Econ. The course is great at USMA and has the best teachers. And when you do get out and decide to either work right away/go to school/try and do banking, it is a solid foundation as opposed to a degree that has "business" in it. It'll suck taking micro/macro but just take comfort in the fact that if I can pass, so can you. Your focus now should be on taking the best courses and getting your commission. Focus on the things you can control, not stuff that may or may not happen in a decade.
Addition:
What you want to do in the army/after will change about 47 times in the next 2 years. Just set yourself up for success by taking a great major.
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