Is Finance a hard major ?

Applying to College
1

<p>In terns of its math I mean , and especially in comparison with economics .</p>

2

<p>In terms of math intensity I mean and in a CSU or SDSU kind of institution …not Harvard</p>

3

<p>And compared to Accounting … Which is harder ( math intensive ) ?
And about job prospects - is there a lot of jobs for people who have a BA in finance ?
and what about Accounting … Which is better in terms of finding a job</p>

4

<p>Finance can be like majoring in math, only the more competitive students are armed with knives. (That was tongue-in-cheek for the humor-impared.)</p>

<p>Depending on the program, either finance or economics can be more math-intensive than the other one, it’s really school dependent. But I don’t think you’ll find any decent program that isn’t pretty math intensive on an absolute scale.</p>

<p>Accounting has math, but not at the level of either one of those programs. I’m not an accountant, but accountants generally don’t have much use for differential equations, finance and econ majors do.</p>

<p>Like all math-intensive majors, job prospects are generally good for any of the three, even at the BS/BA level, though a lot of people go back to get higher degrees and certificates both before and after getting jobs.</p>

5

<p>I got the impression that finance is a lot less math intensive than economics . Was I completely wrong ? .</p>

6

<p>Welcome to Finance!</p>

<p>[Black-Scholes</a> - Wikipedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-Scholes]Black-Scholes”>Black–Scholes model - Wikipedia)</p>

7

<p>So if I am less proficient in math would you tell me to go to accounting ?
By the way . What are my odds of getting a job with a BA degree in accounting from a California State University or San Diego state university ?
Are they low because it’s not a private school like Yale and Stanford and Harvard and all those ?</p>

8

<p>For an undergrad major in a CSU, your impression seems to be correct. Finance is taught as a subspecialty of business administration, most of the required courses are various other areas of business admin, and the finace-specific courses don’t seem to require higher-level math.</p>

<p>For financial engineering at Columbia, it would be a different story. :)</p>

9

<p>The jobs you get out of SDSU or a CSU will be different than Harvard, Chicago, or Columbia simply because the degrees cover different things. SDSU and CSUs exist to fill local needs. I believe the course catalogs for all of them are available online if you want to compare the differences. A key will be to see what prereq’s are required for any given course.</p>

<p>Like any program, the higher your GPA, the more job prospects there will be. Just don’t go to SDSU and think you’ll be able to compete for Wall Street jobs with the Chicago grads. There’s nothing wrong with a SDSU degree, it’s just aimed at a different audience.</p>

10

<p>Ok say I choose to go for accounting from a CSU ( say long beach ) or SDSU , what are my chances of getting a job ?</p>

11

<p>What do you mean Mom ? I am not from the USA so I don’t know what you are referring to .
Will I be able to get a job in California at least , I do not want to go to Wall Street .</p>

12

<p>If you are an international, going to school in the US is one thing, getting a job here is something else. Immigration is a whole other ballgame, but I don’t think that just because you have a student visa here that you are eligible to get a job here. Different visas have different rules.</p>

<p>Someone more versed in immigration will have to answer your questions, but I don’t think coming to school here is a back door to immigrating and getting a job here, except for possibly some STEM specialties. I believe most international students are expected to return to their home countries after graduation, unless they marry a US citizen.</p>

13

<p>Nevermind that ( my mom is a US citizen ) what do you mean that it’s for a different audience ?
Can you get a job with it or not ? In Cali I mean with a BA in accounting from a CSU of SDSU</p>

14

<p>Yes, there are people employed all over California with accounting degrees from SDSU. What I mean is that public schools everywhere tend to tailor their degrees to meet the needs of local employers - that’s what they’re there for.</p>

15

<p>Ok and which is better in accounting CSULB or SDSU ??</p>

16

<p>That gets down to personal preference. There are so many variables to that equation, only you can answer the question.</p>

17

<p>UCs actually list employment statstics by major. Not sure if CSUs do or not. If they don’t, numbers for comparable UCs will still be pretty informative.</p>

18

<p>Yeah but UC is considered better right ? </p>

<p>Anyway which math courses will I need to pass on CSU and SDSU accounting programs ?</p>

19

<p>I would suggest going to the CSU and SDSU websites, click on the academics link and follow it to the business department. You should be able to find the exact academic requirements for the accounting programs at each school.</p>

20

<p>Sorry, it looks like only Berkeley does the full breakdown of employment rates. That’s maybe not the most useful for your purposes, especially since they don’t break down specialties within business admin. But it’s still kind of interesting:</p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I’d be wary of accounting; that’s one of the fields that outsourcing has hit the hardest. </p>

<p>None of the required upper-level finance courses at SDSU appear to have a math prereq:</p>

<p><a href=“http://cbaweb.sdsu.edu/assets/files/undergrad/catalog/Finance2009-2013.pdf[/url]”>http://cbaweb.sdsu.edu/assets/files/undergrad/catalog/Finance2009-2013.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Ditto for accounting:</p>

<p><a href=“http://cbaweb.sdsu.edu/assets/files/undergrad/catalog/Accounting2009-2013.pdf[/url]”>http://cbaweb.sdsu.edu/assets/files/undergrad/catalog/Accounting2009-2013.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;