Economics major

Inmotion12
Sat, 07 Aug 2010 21:44:42 +0000

Anyone who paid attention to economics 101 will know that there is always a trade-off with anything you do. One of the main tradeoffs of an economics degree is trading specificity- and the security/possible higher salary that goes with it- and diversity.

An economics major is not trained for a specific role in the way that an engineer or accountant is, but is rather ready for a wide variety of different roles in different industries. For example, at the company I work for an economics degree will prepare me to work in either our supply chain, real estate, finance, global sourcing, or risk management divisons and I would even be prepared for sales & marketing or human resources jobs there if that’s what I truly wanted. But an accountant is going to work in the accounting department and that’s pretty much his only option. An engineer is going to work in the engineering department until he decides to go back to school.

What an economics major often gives up for this diversity is starting salary, but numerous studies have shown that economics majors have very solid career starting salaries- comparable with accountants and finance majors- and mid-career salaries that often outperform their business counterparts.