Need help deciding on a major!

Dunboyne
Tue, 22 Oct 2013 14:29:13 +0000

newyorkcitylivin, I’m happy for your new-found enthusiasm!

–One thing I’d like to point out is not to lose sight of being flexible with your plans. I’m not sure if this came across in my posts, but even if you choose to only Minor in Economics, your options for the future are still very good. An Econ minor still allows you to have all or most of the pre-requisites to transition into a business career, with an MA in Economics or MSc in Management or an MBA, etc. So I wouldn’t rule out the Econ minor if you decide to Major in Communications or English. I’m not trying to sway you one way or the other; just want to make you aware that it still works.

–If you choose to minor in Econ, and want to be fully prepared for grad school in Business, take a few courses in other business fields such as accounting, marketing, and finance. You don’t need many, just two or three to give some depth to your business studies. An Econ major usually has this depth built into the program, but with a minor, be careful with course selection to give yourself options for the future.

–By all means, write your Personal Statements and Apps to include Economics as a major if that’s what you choose. But in reality, I’d recommend that you be flexible when ultimately settling between the Econ major or minor, and the Comm/English major or minor. You can probably switch. Your choice might depend partly on what school you attend.

–Are you applying to UCSD? Their graduate Econ program is ranked as highly as UCLA, Duke, Brown, Cornell (US News). I know it’s a graduate ranking, but the undergrad quality might be similar. Just my opinion, but if you want to major in Economics, think about applying to UCSD and UCLA. UCLA Econ and English are both excellent, so you might want to give it a whirl unless you think it’s far too reachy. UCD, UCSB and UCI are all solid choices too, but I think you said somewhere you have already decided to apply to those schools.