<p>I’m currently a freshman and was also dead set on business. Penn (Wharton) was my first choice. I also came to Berkeley thinking I would apply to Haas and major in BA. Having said that, I’m no longer an intended business major; luckily both UGBA 10 and Econ 1 (I’m taking both right now) can be used as Humanities/Social Science breadths for one of the majors I’m intending to switch into (Chemical engineering in the College of Chemistry).</p>
<p>If you’re going to eventually get an MBA, don’t do business for undergrad. Also, for most MBA programs, if not all of them, you would need to get some work experience prior to getting admitted; it’s not feasible to go to b-school right after undergrad unless you’re amazing and started your own successful business (at least that’s what I’ve heard about the top b-schools). </p>
<p>I figure I can check out some business textbooks and learn on my own. I’m thinking of pursuing an MBA later down the road. The curriculum is really underwhelming to me, and I think I would be wasting my time pursuing business for undergrad. Econ 1 is so boring (is it only me who doesn’t find Olney that amazing?? Maybe it’s because I’ve learned half the material already in HS and would’ve preferred more math and less writing in this course). UGBA 10 reminds me of HS with its memorization scantron exams but coupled with curves. </p>
<p>I was also considering ORMS (Operations Research & Management Science) alongside BA. While I don’t find BA that appealing or challenging, ORMS is a great and hard major (impacted as well), and is like business/financial engineering. It’s heavy on Math, Stats and Computer Science, sprinkled with Econ. IEOR (Industrial Engineering & Operations Research) is the College of Engineering version of ORMS (more engineering courses, less flexible). Now these two majors are very worthwhile in my opinion and you would actually learn something rigorous. Having said that, I find IEOR boring and to an extent hard because I could care less about all of its applied math.</p>