Stern or Columbia? NEED HELP!!!

openedskittles
Fri, 21 May 2010 12:26:01 +0000

I’ve heard complaints from recruiters who go to top schools and ivies and interview non-business majors for business positions and, upon being asked a technical question in the interview, they say a lot of students actually try to use the fact that their university doesn’t have an undergraduate business program as an excuse for not knowing how to answer.

If you self-study a bit you should be fine since Columbia is such a great school, but I think it really comes down to studying what you are interested in. Sure a math major at Columbia can get a job crunching numbers for an investment bank, but are you more interested in learning about math or about financial theories, techniques and operations?

I also heard about “not pursuing vocational degrees for undergrad” but it’s really a load of bull from bitter students and alum more often than not. The main arguments for it are that you’re somehow sacrificing your well-rounded education and are going to repeat what you’ve already covered if you get an MBA and both claims are rooted in ignorance. The truth is that any decent university is going to require the same core classes from everyone and the business core classes will probably be more well-rounded than the engineering core classes and major-specific classes will focus on your major no matter what it happens to be. A top BBA program can open doors an average MBA program can’t and the vast majority of BBA students find that they don’t even need to go back for an MBA.

I would be leaning toward Stern because I bet you are more interested in finance than you are in math in general and if you’re worried about standing out, consider that employers will look at the business school students first (when there is an undergraduate program) to fill their top business jobs, so your main competition is narrowed down from the entire undergraduate body to the couple hundred kids who are also in Stern. Yeah, you’ll still need to stand out if you want the tippy top investment banks, but there actually are recruiters that value business preparation and you’ll be one of the first picks on the list of all of those other business choices, too.