Where and what should I study? (Business related)

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Hi everyone,

This is my first post here so I do apologize if this is the wrong forum. Anyways, here is what’s up. I pretty much blew my high school years, only getting into a few state schools. Ended up going to SFSU and hated it. Now I’m going to Sierra Community College, and I have no idea what I should study. For a while I wanted to study Biochemistry at UCSC, UCB, or UCLA. Post-grad I would have wanted to go to pharmacy school at either UCSD or UCSF.

While I was obsessed with and still have an intense passion for chemistry and biology, that is definitely not what I want to do for my career. I want to create jobs - I want to own my own business. Eventually invest in real-estate and stocks, among other things. But I have no idea what I should study to help me accomplish those goals.

From what I have researched so far, the consensus on business degrees is that they predominantly prepare you for managing an already successful business, not one that is just getting itself off the ground. So I was thinking of studying finance, since the knowledge I would gain from pursuing a degree in finance would be widely applicable to most business scenarios.

As for the where, I live close to Sacramento so it would be the most financially beneficial option to go to Sac state and live with my parents so I wouldn’t have to pay for housing. I’ve been looking into Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and it looks like it is quite hard to get into. I could pull a more than adequate GPA and I already have some extracurriculars that would like nice on a resume. (Will continue to add to the list.) I’m wary about Haas, but do you think it is a reasonable expectation that I could potentially get in, given stellar grades and decent ECs?

Tomorrow I start at Sierra, and the majority of my classes all fall under the pre-reqs for both Sac and UCB.

So anyways, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Hopefully, you didn’t tank your GPA too much at SFSU. GPA is the primary metric used to evaluate applicants.

Your grades will determine where you are eligible to transfer. Do your best, prepare targeting Cal if that’s were you want to go. You should know that their admit rate for business transfers is about 5%. That’s akin to Stanford and Harvard’s freshman admission - just have a back up plan.

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major

UC Riverside also has a very good business program which is TAG eligible, making it a known quantity.

Of course, there are lots of schools with good Biz and Managerial Econ programs so, you have more than 2 options. It is hard to give you much more focused advice without a sense of your GPA

I am a double Sac State grad (BS Biz and MBA) from many moons ago. I know plenty of very successful Hornets. At this point, I’d encourage you to keep your options open.

Why not double major?

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As a community college transfer, the undergrad UCB Haas is very difficult to get into. The average GPA for CC transfers for Fall 2016 is 3.93. 2015, it was almost 3.9. For UCB students, for Fall 2016, it was 3.65. You can see all the stats in the Haas website.

Alternatively, you might want to consider UC Davis’ business econ. Or as mentioned above, UCR is another option if you want to attend a UC business school. Lastly, UC Irvine opened an undergraduate business school a few years ago and you might want to look into it.