Why no business major at (most of) the Ivies

[Anonymous]

No business major offered at Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Columbia. Cornell the "land grant Ivy" is an exception, and even Penn's Wharton School grants the BS in economics presumably because they don't want to embarrass their graduates with a lowly business degree. Why don't most of the Ivies offer a business major?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No business major offered at Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Columbia. Cornell the "land grant Ivy" is an exception, and even Penn's Wharton School grants the BS in economics presumably because they don't want to embarrass their graduates with a lowly business degree. Why don't most of the Ivies offer a business major?

Business subjects, like engineering subjects have traditionally been considered to be “training”, not “education”. Even Harvards engineering school which was started in 1847 (over two hundred years after Harvard was established) was set up as a separate school to teach the “practical aspects” of the sciences rather than the study of science.

[Anonymous]

When my dad was in college in the 1960s, HBS was considered the destination of failsons.

Today's kids don't care. They want big money jobs. Everyone knows that economics is the business major if the school doesn't have it.

Rich people are more encouraged and rewarded for tacky behavior now. Making arguments about an economics major being more academic and less pre-professional than a business major is kind of laughable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my dad was in college in the 1960s, HBS was considered the destination of failsons.

Today's kids don't care. They want big money jobs. Everyone knows that economics is the business major if the school doesn't have it.

Rich people are more encouraged and rewarded for tacky behavior now. Making arguments about an economics major being more academic and less pre-professional than a business major is kind of laughable.

True. College used to be about education. Now it’s just white collar job prep.

[Anonymous]

Business is a practical degree. That’s not what the ivies offer. I went to Cornell for engineering. What we studied was very theoretical, not practical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No business major offered at Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Columbia. Cornell the "land grant Ivy" is an exception, and even Penn's Wharton School grants the BS in economics presumably because they don't want to embarrass their graduates with a lowly business degree. Why don't most of the Ivies offer a business major?

Business subjects, like engineering subjects have traditionally been considered to be “training”, not “education”. Even Harvards engineering school which was started in 1847 (over two hundred years after Harvard was established) was set up as a separate school to teach the “practical aspects” of the sciences rather than the study of science.

+1 These are liberal arts degrees. But with an Ivy econ major, you'll typically see undergrads taking coursework in quantative finance, math, statistics/econometrics, and political economy. Ivies with engineering schools sometimes have an industrial engineering/operations management major that has a lot of use for those who want to work in "business." You won't see many courses in accounting, marketing, communications and other things you see in an undergrad business degree at other schools.

[Anonymous]

Because the Ivies are not trade schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No business major offered at Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Columbia. Cornell the "land grant Ivy" is an exception, and even Penn's Wharton School grants the BS in economics presumably because they don't want to embarrass their graduates with a lowly business degree. Why don't most of the Ivies offer a business major?

If you are asking this, you have missed the point of an ivy education

[Anonymous]

It’s a vocational major. You don’t need a vocational major to work in business.

[Anonymous]

Yet, Wharton, Stern, Dyson are among the best pipelines to Wall Street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No business major offered at Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Columbia. Cornell the "land grant Ivy" is an exception, and even Penn's Wharton School grants the BS in economics presumably because they don't want to embarrass their graduates with a lowly business degree. Why don't most of the Ivies offer a business major?

If you are asking this, you have missed the point of an ivy education

+1
It's a different philosophy focused on a liberal arts education. Most LACs don't have a business major either.

If that's what you want, there are plenty of other schools where you can find it.

If you think it's important for a business career, I'll say this. Tons of i-banking and management consulting firms came to campus to recruit at my HYP. I didn't go that path, but a lot of friends worked for a few years, then went to top MBA programs (Wharton). And they are doing very well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because the Ivies are not trade schools.

lol how dumb is this statement.

[Anonymous]

It's the reason Ivies are getting outpaced and outranked for integral STEM subjects like Engineering and Tech. They also know now they can't compete with these other schools so to them what's the point at this stage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the reason Ivies are getting outpaced and outranked for integral STEM subjects like Engineering and Tech. They also know now they can't compete with these other schools so to them what's the point at this stage.

I do not know if anything will change for undergrad business degrees, but Harvard relatively recently revamped and strengthened its engineering program — in large part because STEM education now is understood to be more than “electrician training”.

[Anonymous]

Wharton is a BUSINESS school. Does that not clock for you? America's favorite president went there.