How useful is a business + engineering dual degree (3+2 Emory with GT) vs solely Mechanical Engineering degree (Gtech)

I recently made a post comparing the two college offers I’m considering, but I would like to have more information on what types of jobs and careers I could go into with a business and engineering degree. For some background, I’m interested in both business (more consulting & management side) and engineering. However, I’m not yet sure what career I want to go into and I need to figure out in order to choose the best college for me. I can either go to Georgia Tech for Mechanical engineering or do a 5-year dual degree program with Emory and Georgia Tech (3 years at Emory for a business degree and 2 at GT for engineering).

I’m aware of the jobs I’d get with just a mechanical engineering degree from Gtech. I’m mainly looking for insight into the types of jobs I can go into with both an engineering and business dual degree. What are some engineering jobs that would value a business education and business jobs that would value an engineering degree? Could I go into these same jobs with just an engineering degree? If I decide I just want to go into purely engineering later, but also do the dual degree program would having a business degree harm me or help for technical positions? Same with business and having an engineering degree. Also, would I be a top applicant for engineering/tech consulting jobs with a dual degree? I don’t know much about engineering consulting so any insight would help (what are the hours, pay, etc).

Thanks in advance for the advise!

Unless it’s IE, most posters here would dissuade you from the dual business engineering approach. It signals you don’t want to do tech work, but don’t have experience to offer business or engineering expertise.

Of course, IE itself has some business-adjacent course work (engineering economics and finance, operations research, data analytics, manufacturing processes, human factors) anyway, so an entire second major in business may not be necessary to learn everything contained in that major.

But some opinions on the matter have already been posted in your other thread: Berkeley OOS [$79k, mech eng] vs Gtech OOS [$52k, mech eng] vs Emory [$38k, business + engineering 3+2 with GT] - #12 by HTTC24

According to various studies - some back ten years and others more recent, 3 of 4 STEM grads don’t work in STEM - so whether you have a business degree or not - there’s a lot you can do from sales (technical, pharmaceutical) to marketing, product management, supply chain and more with an engineering degree. A business degree doesn’t necessarily help that.

I asked my son, whose second internship as the same as his first company, was not engineering - and I asked - why did they want an engineering student. And he said - because they like the way we think.

He interned in developing an optimized service process at the dealership level for a car company.

I personally would not do a 3-2 for a few reasons.

  1. You spend an extra year of tuition

  2. You lose a year of income

  3. You might decide to get an MBA later - and the benefit there is to either pivot to a new role if you don’t like yours or increase your earning potential.

If you get a business undergrad (essentially the same education as an MBA, you give up that tool that you might need later.

To answer your questions - unless you are going into something specific like finance or accounting, I don’t see the dual degree adding much to your career potential up front beyond the engineering degree. Once you’re in your career, you’re trajectory will be based more on that and less on the degree choice.

Good luck.

Thanks for the replies. I’m starting to realize an additional business degree might not provide as much value as I originally thought. However, I still see value in exploring both my interests and seeing what I truly like. I want to make sure I like engineering because I genuinely enjoy it and not because I like the “idea” of becoming one. I want to be able to see if I want to go into business or engineering, and the dual degree is useful for that. But I’m still not sure if that is worth an extra year of school/loss of income yet.

Also I had one more questions regarding MBAs. If I decide to pursue an MBA later in my life wouldn’t having a dual degree in business and engineering help me significantly/help me stand out among other applicants for top business schools. I realize I’ll be learning a lot of the same information in the BBA as the MBA, but these top business schools are all about networking anyways so that’s fine with me.

  1. My opinion is there’s not a lot of extra value - others might think differently.

  2. My MBA classmates who were business undergrad were bored - it’s the same thing. B schools don’t care what you major in - but the engineering undergrads were definitely more sought after by companies than those like me (history and journalism). I still did well but it was the late 90s and the big tech companies were hiring like HP and Intel and wanted the engineers.

If you want to do engineering to see - then go to a college with engineering - and take some business classes too. This way you have both. Ga Tech has a fantastic business school too.

This is exactly the point I was going to bring up if we continued on the previous thread - option value of the 3+2 dual degree. It will allow you the opportunity to really experience the two fields through the academic works, internships and industry connections at two schools. Then you can truly decide.

It’s a rather privileged position you are in to be able to “explore” your true interest. The cost of college education has become so high that people are getting more and more focused on outcome and ROI, which is nothing wrong. But we almost forgot that not too long ago, students were encouraged to explore in college, at least the first two years, instead of making their life decision before even entering college. If it were my kid, I would encourage the 3+2 route, but it’s ultimate the decision for you and your family due to the incremental costs. (More on costs later).

Let’s play with a few scenarios. I’d assume two potential routes, and different branches under each route:

  1. GTech 4-year engineering
    a. Study engineering undergrad and go do engineering job after graduation (let’s say this is your base case)
    b. Study engineering undergrad, work a few years in engineering and find out you don’t like it, so go to an MBA to pivot
  2. Emory+GTech 3+2
    a. Decide that you still want to do engineering, so spend one more year in college thus extra cost
    b. Find the job that perfectly combine business and engineering training (I provided some examples in the previous thread)
    c. Before you finish the first three years, you find out you really like business, so just finish your four years in Emory. (saving of 52x4-38x4=56k)

So there are two scenarios under Route 1, and three scenarios under Route 2. You can then estimate the costs/benefits (incremental, relative to Scenario 1.a) of each scenario. For example, 2.a vs. 1.a, the incremental cost is difference in 5-year COA vs. 4-year, plus one year of loss income. So 38x3+52x2-52x4=10k, plus let’s say opportunity cost of lost income of 100k per year.

You can basically try to estimate the costs/benefits for each scenario, assign a probability for each scenario, and get a expected value for each of the two routes, respectively.

Now, something you might want to know about 1.b, since MBA has been mentioned several times in your previous threads.

  1. The cost for a top MBA program is now about 200k to 250k per year in today’s currency (100k COA + lost income say 100k-150k). So for a two-year full-time program, you will be looking at 400k to 500k.
  2. If you do go to an MBA to pivot, what are you pivoting into? Most people go to top MBA program to pivot into consulting, investment banking, PE/VC, or business side of technology companies - basically the same types of job that you will be looking at under in Scenario 2.b…

Sorry this post is getting very long. Just one last feedback on your question. No, a dual degree may not necessarily help you get into top MBA. It is indeed repetition. In fact, due to the high costs of MBA as mentioned above, the application for traditional MBA has been decreasing. Employers who used to love MBAs are more open to hiring BBAs from the top undergrad programs to train them on the job, and fewer are sending their analysts back to MBA.

“Standing out” for business school isn’t really a thing.

First- you are either qualified or not. And that’s some combination of the rigor of your undergrad, your grades, your GMAT score, and what you are doing now (your post BA employment… for at least a few years).

Second- you are either someone the adcom’s believe will add to the learning experience for your classmates or not. So your recommendations, the types of activities you’ve been involved in, your motivation for attending an MBA program, etc.

You don’t need to “stand out”. You need to be qualified at wherever a particular program sets the bar, and you need to demonstrate that your skills and experiences will add to the environment for your classmates. Most successful MBA students don’t “stand out”- they look remarkably alike in terms of their academic preparation. What sets them apart is the personal stuff- what their current boss says about them, why they want an MBA.

I would set business school aside for now and look at the course offerings/your program for both options. Which one looks more interesting to you?

Depending on how many credits you come in with, you may have room in your schedule to take business classes while studying traditional engineering at GT. My D, at another school, was able to get a business/leadership certification and take econ courses. She is now in her company’s leadership development program and wants to work in management. As of right now, she expects to her MBA down the road and on the company’s dime.