Current Columbia University student, here to help

jw2149
Thu, 26 Sep 2013 12:12:11 +0000

Great question. At first, it’ll seem like ‘Financial Economics’ or ‘Economics’ is the most popular major among the freshman class, however this is because those kids are the ones who are quickest to loudly announce to everyone that they want to work at Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan and they’re going to be insanely rich.

Although there are quite a few students who begin wanting to study Econ, a large number of them drop the major within taking the first couple of classes. It is common, however, for students to slowly migrate from their various majors (PoliSci, Sociology, Math) to working summers and eventually post-grad on Wall Street.

Strictly by the numbers, the Class of 2017 possible major choices pans out like this:
Math and Science: 32%
Arts and Humanities: 20%
Engineering: 23%
Social Sciences: 22%
Undecided: 3%