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IF you plan on pursuing a career in business, what major at Yale would be geared towards doing so? Will businesses recognize this? What are the average placements for Yale undergrads going into business? Any information on the topic is much appreciated. Thank you.

By Bradbricks (Bradbricks) on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 11:05 am: Edit

good question!! I wanted to know exactly the same. Does anyone have an idea about this???

By Pentheselia (Pentheselia) on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 11:26 am: Edit

I think you can major in anything for business, but isn't economics considered the "pre-business" major?

By Rhkid005 (Rhkid005) on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 08:18 pm: Edit

Depends... any liberal arts major can actually prepare you for an MBA/business school. In fact, lots of business schools refuse to specify a certain major that will best help get you in; they usually say that anyone with writing and quantitative (math) skills has a chance. Economics is usually good, though.

By Run4fun (Run4fun) on Monday, August 23, 2004 - 06:34 pm: Edit

I agree that the general notion is to major in economics if you want to go into business (as I do). But you may want to research the given school's economics program before selecting that as your major as some schools take a theoretical approach and others a hands-on one, the latter being better for the prospective MBA student. However, the reality of it is that you need not major in economics to go into business, in fact, it may be a bad idea. Although you will definitely aquire the quantitative skills needed for an MBA, I am doubtful that your writing and general communications skills will improve tremendously. This, as with most college decisions, boils down to a choice based on personal preference. Dont take economics because you think you need to, take it because you want to. (I personally have already taken one year of econ. as an IB diploma candidate, and it was very interesting, but not something I would want to do for another four years, especially considering you will cover the necesary economics principles at the business school you choose to attend anyways). If you so desire, do some research to find out what kind of backgrounds some current MBA students have come from. I remember reading something on the Wharton site about a first-year MBA student who had majored in architecture and feared that his prepartation was not adequate in comparison to all the people there who had done something related to finance. Of course, everything turned out to be all right, and he fit in perfectly like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

By Suprmodl29 (Suprmodl29) on Sunday, September 05, 2004 - 09:00 pm: Edit

what about becoming an exec in the fashion world, where an MBA isn't always required? also, is it possible (as in feasible) to double major in econ and psych? thanks so much!

By Sakky (Sakky) on Monday, September 06, 2004 - 02:05 pm: Edit

If you're talking about getting into MBA school, one of the top, if not the top field to come from is engineering.

Consider the MBA program at MIT-Sloan. It should surprise nobody that about 40% of entering MBA MIT-Sloan students are engineers. (I saw this statistic in hard-copy, I'll post an Internet link for it when I find it).

Now you might be thinking, well yeah, sakky, that's MITSloan. Of course MIT is going to be engineering-heavy. But consider some of the other top MBA programs, and notice the prominent position that engineers take.

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0211/spreadsheet_class.shtml

http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/downloads/publications/mbacareer02.pdf

http://www.kellogg.nwu.edu/admissions/apply/entering.htm

http://www.bus.umich.edu/Admissions/Mba/Profile.htm

By Suprmodl29 (Suprmodl29) on Monday, September 06, 2004 - 10:08 pm: Edit

Did the YES do 7th on Yale this past year?

By Run4fun (Run4fun) on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - 09:37 pm: Edit

Very interesting research sakky, thanks. I had never though that the majority of students pursuing an MBA did engineering in college. I was originially going to do business, then I figured it would be better to do economics, now I think I'm going to major in econ and minor in computer science, unless I go to Penn in which case I will almost certainly go to Wharton.