Your Thoughts

I wouldn't have gone to an undergrad business program.

I wouldn't major in Finance but something more technical like engineering or computer science/programming.

Maybe a dual with comp sci and finance is there a comp finance undergrad anywhere

Would of choose a different school, far cheaper and would of tried too, transfer out to a better school, I was so set on NYU Stern that I didnt try for other semi-target schools I might of gotten into. I was a marketing major till my first semester of junior year then changed to finance major and decided to pursuing Ibanking and well I go to a non-target and didn't know any of this until this past summer. I wont make the same mistake for MBA....

Well, grass is greener on the other side... Many kids at Ivies complain how Ivies don't have business major and don't teach them anything useful or practical. I would rather learn about accounting or finance, than learn about medieval european history, gender studies, or some ridiculous shit like that.

needless to say, a lot of Ivy liberal arts kids graduate unemployed. at least for job prospects, business major at top UG business college >> liberal arts major at Ivies.

also - even if you are business major, you can take liberal arts courses at your college as an elective, though.

I did a combo of engineering and finance, don't regret it. Today, I wish that I'd been Comp Sci or EE, as opposed to Mech E. Comp Sci or EE is where I think the future is for current college kids.

I would have majored in engineering or something of that sort instead of general liberal arts stuff. Also, would have taken advantage of clubs/organizations besides greek life on campus. I've been looking at some kids resumes these days and it blows my mind how solid their GPA's are and how much they have done in just a few years...makes me feel lucky to have my job.

I have been happy with the Mathematics major. Developed critical reasoning beyond most other courses. Doing it all over though I would have minored in Accounting just for finance tech skills.

Also I would have turned down the full-ride at a non-target for my more expensive, more "prestigious" options.

Study what you like (I liked Econ a lot), enjoy your time and meet a lot of people.

If you like Social Philosophy and passionate about it, you would still enjoy your career, whatever it might be; if you want to enter a better school and try to boost your chances by specializing in some ridiculous discipline, set sail for fail.

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of course not, no one likes people who know how to program in the 21st century...................

I should have studied Economics+Math or Economics+CS, oh well :D.

I wish I had researched every single major much more intensively, as Applied Mathematics, Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science all seem incredibly relevant, as well as marketable skills that are going to be very valuable for a long time.

I am in Finance, mostly because I have to be, with a few minors. I'm extremely glad I have been as involved as I have and have exposed myself from everything from a top fraternity to essentially the math club, and made friends everywhere in between.

I absolutely love being an Applied Math major with an econ minor. There's really no other major I could've chosen. No seriously. Freshman year I was an engineering major and I knew deep down I had to switch to math. It's purely for the enjoyment. But if I could change something it would be to add a CS minor because I like programming too. There's not really enough time left though at this point.

I'm a Math guy going into Finance, so I just thought I'd try to ground some of the commentary I'm seeing on this thread.

I'm happy with my major. Looking back, there's nothing else I would've preferred to study. That said, there's a reason a lot of top math/programming students look into finance. Sure, the payout out of undergrad for developer jobs is awesome, but as a developer, you have to deal with the fact that your long-term upside is a little bit limited. Unless, of course, you stop developing and start being the MBA.

Mostly, be sure to study what you want to study (Within reason: I still think the liberal arts are mostly intellectual masturbation for rich kids). If you major in Mathematics or CS and you don't really want to study Mathematics or CS, you're going to get thrashed by the people who jerk it to a picture of l'Hopital.

I feel like I learned more finance/accounting through my internships and clubs than I did in my actual classes. My classes are a joke now that I've had banking experience. If I could do it again I would have done Econ or Strategy + CS

I went to a liberal arts college for UG. Started as a music performance major, switched to Psychology, economics, and international business before I finally settled on Sociology. I didn't love it, but I was very good at it and enjoyed the writing I had to do (averaged 40-50 pages a week, easily). It definitely helped me become more analytic. I feel like I can approach any problem, and given some time to familiarize myself with it, present an adequate solution.

Thought I'd be able to swing a analyst position but ended up just tutoring the SAT/ACT part time. Started looking into grad programs and ended up applying to and being accepted into a masters in accounting program. I'll be able to solidify my business foundations, but still have my analytic approach to problems. I'm very excited for the opportunity.

If I could do it all over again? I would have double majored in a social science with another major in either Math or Comp Sci. My roommates majored in Physics and Econ/Comp Sci and both were able to get into top engineering management programs and one accepted a six digit starting salary with an elite software company, and had his pick of top consulting gigs. Quant and technical knowledge is important, but so is something to balance it out.

I started off at a large target university in the Northeast and then transferred to a highly ranked but non-target liberal arts college on the west coast. Both experiences were fine but by no means whatsoever did they live up to the expectations I had for them. I'm currently living abroad in Asia.

If there's anything i could do again... I would have taken a year off before starting college and spent a year or two abroad (basically what I'm doing now, except post-graduation). This would have resulted in two very important things:

1) I would have given up on the infantile prestige circle-jerk earlier in life. Having taken my gap year and having escaped the college bubble, I have come to realize that the prestige of firms is a social construct that meant nothing to me until I started college. Having finished college, I realize that prestige again means very little to me as I enter my early 20's. I've worked with non-traditional analysts (think 26 years+) and they've told me that as you age... you really don't care about that stuff as much anymore. So if you're ultimately not going to care about prestige... why not ditch the obsession now? Today, my happiness and self-esteem is ultimately determined by geography and by extension, the proximity of close friends and loved ones. To have learned this lesson four years earlier would have not only made me happier, but also more confident.

2) I also would have viewed college as investment/purchase instead of a necessary and self-congratulatory social ritual. Looking back, I realize that my rationale for choosing the schools I did was again, for the prestige and largely what other people think. Spending time around people that don't attend college make you see it for what it is- an overvalued institution that mostly benefits those that know why they are there and what they want out of it. Go for the alumni network, the branding, and the experience instead of the "intellectual enrichment" scam performed by academics to justify bullshit humanities classes that contribute laughable vocational and/or intellectual value. This would have made me think very hard before choosing schools, majors, and whether I even should attend college at all.

I honestly don't think I would have changed anything. I had an awesome time, and shyed away from the more difficult modules in my final year to make sure I had lots of time to party and fuck around. In the end, I cruised to a 3.9ish GPA equivalent, and my striver friends who chose all the difficult quantitative modules fell into the 3.5-3.9 GPA range while working a ton more than I did.

I don't get why people above wish they did a more difficult major. Screw that.

There is an issue of path dependency here, as if I had changed something I might not be where I am today (and I'm incredibly lucky to end up in my current spot, occasional dissatisfaction aside)...but anyways:

1) Study abroad--I had locked myself into a double major plus a minor, with one of the majors being a very technical subject. The perspective that you can get by simply seeing another part of the world is incredible, and I think a semester at a top-tier place in maybe the UK would be worth giving my other major up for. In an industry driven by your viewpoint on something, learning to appreciate a different viewpoint is really key.

2) Be a more well-rounded student; because of 7 APs and generous credit my university afforded me, I could essentially not take a single humanities or science course. This meant I could explore borderline grad level courses in advanced quantitative disciplines, but I wish I knew how to better communicate my views on certain topics better for a more general audience. Sometimes even your PM might not get your inherent mathematical point at first.

I loved the social experience, maybe wish I had dated a bit more, but that's about it.

I would have minored in CS only because I realized I like programming after teaching myself in my spare time. And it's extremely creative with good career prospects into almost any field.

I don't regret majoring in liberal arts, though I do wish I had chose easier classes to juice my GPA. If I wanted to break into wall street straight out of UG, I would have taken a few finance/econ courses to get my foot in the door. Liberal arts in a rigorous small group setting allows you to work on your general soft skills, writing skills, and logical skills while giving you a basic of understanding about humanity and "what makes people (including yourself) tick" that you'll never get at any other time in your life. I feel like this has been paying off more and more as the years go by and was especially useful when I worked in a leader/manager role. In comparison, I think the business/econ view of people and culture is rather simplistic and incoherent.

Also I wouldn't have taken so much Chinese. With so many smart Chinese people with good English running around in finance, I feel like it's a commodity now. Spanish or Portuguese would have been a better choice.

Brazil is currently the next new thing in emerging market PE, PE firms will hire Americans to work down there (while not so much in China), and they're hungry for talent. By extension a lot of people expect for that to spread to the rest of LatAm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/world/americas/13brazil.html?pagewant…

And Latin America is just awesome.

I have a question. I want to get into quantitative finance. I am a Finance and Accounting major and a computer science and math minor. I am only a soph but ive been told I have a good chance to get into the WashU MSF program (I am currently an WashU undergrad). Is this a good set of classes for that kind of thing? I should add my double minor is pending approval. If I cant double minor should i do a math or computer science minor. thanks

It's about as good as you'll get there. If they won't let you double minor I would drop accounting, but I would do whichever you think would be hardest to teach yourself if you have to pick a minor. Both of those subjects have tons of good resources online in the event you can't minor in it and need to teach yourself.

The discussion made here helped me to solve many of the doubts i had so far..Thanks for this..