Business Degrees perform weak compared to Liberal Arts.
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That article (with all of the different commentators) was interesting; and so is this thread. I remember when I started college and majored in air traffic control (a very "job-oriented" major), I really wasn't impressed with the business majors and had no desire at all to take even a single business class. I switched my major a few times (was an engineering major for a while, then psychology, earned my associates in engineering technology). I worked professionally for a few years before returning for my Bachelor's and that is when I became interested in business. I had a string of positions working for small companies and got to see the ins and outs (and ups and downs) of entrepreneurship first hand. In several instances, I was able to enhance or improve upon business processes -- all without having taken any college coursework in business.
My work experience helped a lot when returning to school. I earned a BA in general "liberal arts"; and opted to minor in business. The courses for my minor were the same ones the business majors took (i.e. Accouting, Finance, Marketing, etc.). My liberal arts courses focused on cultural, religious studies and psychology. In all honesty, I can't say that one set of classes was more difficult than the others. However I love writing and research and I am above-average in math (although it is not my strongest subject). What I can say is that business courses are very task-oriented. You don't get into too much theory or the "why" behind what you do. To be fair, this is to be expected; since business majors need to take coursework in a pretty wide variety of subjects.
Initially I was conflicted with my choice to pursue liberal arts as a major and business as a minor...since my desire to further hone my business acumen is what really brought me back to college. However I realized in the end that a business minor was all I needed for undergraduate studies. The classes were useful, but what I learned on the job still trumped what I learned in college. I don't think that taking more business classes and credits would have changed that. So I'm glad that the bulk of my degree credits came from liberal arts courses where you have the opportunity to research, pursue topics in depth, write, and be more creative all around.
The study of business in my MBA program was very different. There was more "real world" application of it; with a good combination of learning/mastering the course material, putting it all together in a project (most of the time as part of a team) and writing and presenting your work. But again, my 36 credits was plenty to supplement what could be learned on the job. I'm sure there are undergraduate programs out there that have business programs that incorporate a more well-rounded approach. But like anything, it is going to vary significantly from school to school.
Whats your opinion on the Nation's most popular degree?
G.I.G.O.
Garbage in, garbage out ... for the idiots in that crew.
There are two extremes here.
One is the person who gets a business degree because they don't know what they want to do, but don't want a liberal arts degree. They were among the bottom of the barrel in terms of academic performance upon being admitted to a university. The social things, like the Greek system and knowing the right people, were more important to them then acquiring knowledge and becoming more well rounded. Oftentimes, they had silver spoons, trust funds, and no worries about what the future brought. Vapid marketing majors are the group most people in college are most likely to make fun of and, sometimes, that assessment is a good one. They tend to be the gym attendance devotees of the university. How can one disrespect a person who majors in geography and urban studies, for example, if he or she has good intellectual capacity and is really interested in that rather than having sighed and checked a box for admission to the b-school?
The other is the person who went into a business curriculum being really bright. The curriculum actually straddles a variety of topic areas - from quantitative reasoning and problem solving, to ethical debate, legal concepts, and organizational psychology issues. For the really bright student going in, they are going to get As in ALL of those subjects and further stretch their mental processing faculties. Such a business student often has his or her sights set on law school, graduate B-school, other study, or a respectable job in industry.
The 2.8 in business from the low-end campus of a state's second tier university system and the 3.8 in business from a public Ivy live on two different planets, intellectually.
However, there's always that crazy adage: the C students get rich, the B students work for the C students, and the A students teach. When I was in grad school, I preferred to study at the law library because it had these quiet mezzanines and I befriended some of the law students. They were talking about one of their profs, who was supposedly a hoot, and said that during the first class meeting, he said "I don't play golf, so that's why I teach." That's another reality and another spin on the adage.
So, the quality of the business major is USUALLY highly dependent on their general intellect, the competitiveness of their school, and their academic performance ... as predictors.
Garbage in, garbage out ... for the idiots in that crew.
There are two extremes here.
One is the person who gets a business degree because they don't know what they want to do, but don't want a liberal arts degree. They were among the bottom of the barrel in terms of academic performance upon being admitted to a university. The social things, like the Greek system and knowing the right people, were more important to them then acquiring knowledge and becoming more well rounded. Oftentimes, they had silver spoons, trust funds, and no worries about what the future brought. Vapid marketing majors are the group most people in college are most likely to make fun of and, sometimes, that assessment is a good one. They tend to be the gym attendance devotees of the university. How can one disrespect a person who majors in geography and urban studies, for example, if he or she has good intellectual capacity and is really interested in that rather than having sighed and checked a box for admission to the b-school?
The other is the person who went into a business curriculum being really bright. The curriculum actually straddles a variety of topic areas - from quantitative reasoning and problem solving, to ethical debate, legal concepts, and organizational psychology issues. For the really bright student going in, they are going to get As in ALL of those subjects and further stretch their mental processing faculties. Such a business student often has his or her sights set on law school, graduate B-school, other study, or a respectable job in industry.
The 2.8 in business from the low-end campus of a state's second tier university system and the 3.8 in business from a public Ivy live on two different planets, intellectually.
However, there's always that crazy adage: the C students get rich, the B students work for the C students, and the A students teach. When I was in grad school, I preferred to study at the law library because it had these quiet mezzanines and I befriended some of the law students. They were talking about one of their profs, who was supposedly a hoot, and said that during the first class meeting, he said "I don't play golf, so that's why I teach." That's another reality and another spin on the adage.
So, the quality of the business major is USUALLY highly dependent on their general intellect, the competitiveness of their school, and their academic performance ... as predictors.
Good post. It is a fact that rigor of program and student engagement matter and vary greatly between Universities.
Good post. It is a fact that rigor of program and student engagement matter and vary greatly between Universities.
Agreed. It's also sink or swim. I believe that a competitive environment brings out the best in a more dedicated student, and that a less competitive environment tends to make them more vapid. I saw this from attending two Catholic HSs with two very different sets of academic standards. Also, I like to joke about how much I would have loved to go to the University of West Florida in Pensacola and go to the beach every day, but I don't think that would have been a good decision. For fun and a good tan? Yes. For learning and going to grad school? No.
"A recent study found that undergraduate business majors study less than other students, and lag behind in assessments of critical thinking and writing skills -- scoring lower than students in education and communications, and well behind liberal arts majors."
Whats your opinion on the Nation's most popular degree?
Depends on where you go to school. I'm sure liberal arts majors from Stanford do better than business majors from Strayer. Far as business majors and liberal majors from the same school, all I can say is that as a business major, I breezed through every liberal arts subject I ever took. Literally, read those books in 3 to 5 hours per week and received A's. Not so with the business curriculum, as subjects like accounting, finance, statistics, trig, college algebra, and calculus took some time to learn.
With the exception of the rigors involved in Accounting and Economics, "business degrees", e.g. business management, business administration, finance etc while useful (to some extent) are not exactly academically rigorous programs. They are more about practicality than they are about intense research, writing academia related skills much like social work and other like minded degrees.
All in all, what matters is the bottom line and it wouldn't surprise me to find out that business related majors score jobs faster and see a faster climb on income mobility compared to LAs majors.
So who wins or who loses is entirely debatable, depending on what seat you're sitting in.
Finance is not an academically rigorous field? Really? I care to differ. Finance is right up there with accounting and any other type of quant-related business degree (e.g. Statistics).
As for your second statement that "they are more about practicality than they are about intense research, writing academia related skills..." I care to differ on this as well. Some majors such as supply chain management incorporate outside research into industry trends, for example, into their projects. For example, one project I completed required us to analyze an Excel spreadsheet of 200,000+ lines of data.
In addition to this, we ere required to identify opportunities for savings and combine our conclusions and strategy with research we completed with regards to the industry for the component we were looking at which, in our case, was oilfield cement.
IMO, its become a trend to look down on business majors because some colleges and some majors are not "intensive enough". However, I would argue that a majority of business programs require the same amount of critical thinking an research skills that one would find in a typical LA degree plan for philosophy, for example.
They do? I think you better look at that link you just posted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by user_id
The idea that philosophy students have poor job prospects isn't borne out by the data, philosophy students have one of the highest median incomes in terms of so called liberal arts and have higher incomes than some sciences as well. That is very telling, unlike English, History, etc Philosophy majors can't easily become teachers so their incomes are largely derived from the private sector.
From your link...
Philosophy (58)
History (61)
English (73)
Liberal Arts (82)
Philosophy still falls under American Studies,Linguistics, Classics, etc... Don't get me wrong... I like philosophy majors. Bruce Lee was a Philosophy major. But even he said, "If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done."
If you work hard, your degree doesn't matter much.
I'm a philsophy student. It's tough out there, how to sell yourself.
Most who get into philosophy don't do it for the change, though.
It's not all about numbers. I have to remember that. There's no reason to expect someone to pay me loads just because I can analyze the depraved writings of old men who honestly didn't have a clue, for the most part.
What philosophy does teach you though is something worth holding on to. Expecting it to pay, I guess, is too much to ask.
Most of my colleagues go on to graduate school. the ones who don't do something in something that is essentially business. selling your soul. but, if it's valuable why not?
The article fails to account for the fact that a "business degree" can have many different majors.
Accounting and finance are probably the two toughest majors in the business programs. I have no idea where the poster who said finance isn't difficult got that notion. It's probably the hardest business major in terms of complex thinking.
Guess what? If you want a job as an accountant, then you need an accounting degree. If you want to be a financial analysis, or get into corporate finance, then 95% of the time you need a finance degree.
Management, HRM, Marketing, and the other soft business majors aren't terrible but aren't really useful for setting yourself up for a job like the accounting and finance degrees. It doesn't make them "weak" compared to liberal arts.
College is what you make of it. I know some finance guys who worked hard, got internships, and stepped into a 60k entry level job in corporate finance at age 22. Not too bad in my opinion. I've seen accounting majors get picked up as entry level auditors for Deloitte. Again, not a bad career prospect. I can confidently say that I have not seen any liberal arts majors step into the corporate finance, investments, or accounting roles straight out of college.
If were talking Ivy's and top public schools, there are still kids recruited to wall st.
For some reason, journalists like to bash business majors every couple years for no reason at all. There are slackers in every degree program. I know guys who barely graduate with a 2.0 in engineering and think that's acceptable because it's harder.
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