My husband's gazillionaire financier friend told our kids to study engineering

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ I hate the stereotype that engineers are beta nerds and business kids are alpha charismatic salesman. Reminds me of my dumb fraternity brothers who'd rationalize their worthless major and low GPA with the fact they (thought they) had awesome personalities that all these Fortune 500 companies would kill for. Most of them became cold calling schmucks after college. It's 2017, talented kids are ALL OF THE ABOVE.

PP here. No one said that engineers were nerds and business kids were charismatic salesmen or that talented kids couldn't be all of the above -- although I think it's very rare that talented kids are all of the above. I'm personally not a fan of business majors because I believe with the exception of a technical area like accounting, you can learn business on the job. But there's a reason why Wall Street investment banks hire liberal arts majors who are neither engineers or business majors ...

My point is there isn't a formula that is going to guarantee a successful life or career no matter who O.P.'s gazillion-dollar friend likes to hire.

Wall Street hires liberal arts majors thats BS. if anything they hire them to wipe down the toilets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting for kids who have the interest in and aptitude for engineering. But there are plenty of brilliant kids who don't. I don't know what business your friend has, but seems like you'd get a lot of certain kinds of thinkers with his strategy. Great if you're building or designing, not always so wonderful if you want kids who can sell, communicate and/or write.

Picking a major because it's the in thing or a trend, may nab you a first job, but not necessarily a career you love and will thrive in. I say this as a business major and CPA, who was trying to be similarly practical back in the day. Freshman year at a top college, I had five friends start out as engineers, none of them graduated in that major.

Which "top college" has a business major?

Wharton

Michigan, UVA, Berkeley, MIT, Brown, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ I hate the stereotype that engineers are beta nerds and business kids are alpha charismatic salesman. Reminds me of my dumb fraternity brothers who'd rationalize their worthless major and low GPA with the fact they (thought they) had awesome personalities that all these Fortune 500 companies would kill for. Most of them became cold calling schmucks after college. It's 2017, talented kids are ALL OF THE ABOVE.

PP here. No one said that engineers were nerds and business kids were charismatic salesmen or that talented kids couldn't be all of the above -- although I think it's very rare that talented kids are all of the above. I'm personally not a fan of business majors because I believe with the exception of a technical area like accounting, you can learn business on the job. But there's a reason why Wall Street investment banks hire liberal arts majors who are neither engineers or business majors ...

My point is there isn't a formula that is going to guarantee a successful life or career no matter who O.P.'s gazillion-dollar friend likes to hire.

Wall Street hires liberal arts majors thats BS. if anything they hire them to wipe down the toilets

Yes they hire men who majored in history or Russian lit, because they come from an ivy and have the family background to make the deals that ws is looking for

It's about who you know and who your parents are 90% of the time not what you majored in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claims he hires people in spite of business degrees, doesn't target them. Engineers learn real skills and content, business is learned by doing it.

Just thought I'd share for those weighing college plans.

The problem is, the majority of kids who could hack a business degree couldn't hack an engineering degree. He's hiring much smarter kids by targeting engineering grads.

I hate this stereotype that many kids can't "hack" an engineering degree. This notion is patently wrong. Yes, not everyone can, but who is concerned that their kid can't "hack" a degree in journalism, or history? It might take work, but it's useful. And engineering programs are no longer so focused on "weeding out" but on getting kids to all learn the material. It can be done, but adults tell people they can't do engineering is not going to help.

[Anonymous]

It's because of the heavy math background. My DH is a managing director at an investment bank. Says they look for people with strong math backgrounds: physics, engineering, math, comp sci, etc. Finance is where the money is. However, you have to want to do the work which means you have to find it inherently interesting. Not sure how many people with serious physics backgrounds are really that intrigued by money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claims he hires people in spite of business degrees, doesn't target them. Engineers learn real skills and content, business is learned by doing it.

Just thought I'd share for those weighing college plans.

The problem is, the majority of kids who could hack a business degree couldn't hack an engineering degree. He's hiring much smarter kids by targeting engineering grads.

I hate this stereotype that many kids can't "hack" an engineering degree. This notion is patently wrong. Yes, not everyone can, but who is concerned that their kid can't "hack" a degree in journalism, or history? It might take work, but it's useful. And engineering programs are no longer so focused on "weeding out" but on getting kids to all learn the material. It can be done, but adults tell people they can't do engineering is not going to help.

+1. The whole having or not having a "math brain" is the most cringe-inducing thing ever.

[Anonymous]

So a UMich, Illinois, Georgia Tech engineering degree is more valuable in finance than a BBA from UMich-Ross, NYU-Stern, Penn-Wharton? I find that hard to believe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting for kids who have the interest in and aptitude for engineering. But there are plenty of brilliant kids who don't. I don't know what business your friend has, but seems like you'd get a lot of certain kinds of thinkers with his strategy. Great if you're building or designing, not always so wonderful if you want kids who can sell, communicate and/or write.

Picking a major because it's the in thing or a trend, may nab you a first job, but not necessarily a career you love and will thrive in. I say this as a business major and CPA, who was trying to be similarly practical back in the day. Freshman year at a top college, I had five friends start out as engineers, none of them graduated in that major.

Which "top college" has a business major?

Wharton

Michigan, UVA, Berkeley, MIT, Brown, etc.

Instead of listing various top schools, why don't you share your "top school".

Was it a highly analytical program like MIT or Brown (engineering + Econ)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Claims he hires people in spite of business degrees, doesn't target them. Engineers learn real skills and content, business is learned by doing it.

Just thought I'd share for those weighing college plans.

The problem is, the majority of kids who could hack a business degree couldn't hack an engineering degree. He's hiring much smarter kids by targeting engineering grads.

I hate this stereotype that many kids can't "hack" an engineering degree. This notion is patently wrong. Yes, not everyone can, but who is concerned that their kid can't "hack" a degree in journalism, or history? It might take work, but it's useful. And engineering programs are no longer so focused on "weeding out" but on getting kids to all learn the material. It can be done, but adults tell people they can't do engineering is not going to help.

+1. The whole having or not having a "math brain" is the most cringe-inducing thing ever.

Well people do have natural inclinations toward certain subject areas which can help or hinder your success in them. For instance, I genuinely find history interesting. I enjoyed doing the assigned reading for my classes which made it much easier to do well. In contrast, completing a problem set in my math or physics classes was always a slog for me because I found it boring. I still did well but it felt more like "work" rather than something I'd ever choose to do recreationally. As another example, I took a computer science class with a friend. My friend honestly found the work intriguing. She saw it like a puzzle she was determined to solve just to know she could and to understand how it worked. If I wasn't being graded, I wouldn't have wanted to tinker around with the program. I had no inherent interest in figuring out how it worked.

In addition to the above issue, you do realize that math education is severely lacking in many areas of the United States right? If you don't have a good strong background in the fundamentals, you can forget ever going above precalc or calc 1. So there lies the problem for most students who can't "hack" engineering or physics majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's because of the heavy math background. My DH is a managing director at an investment bank. Says they look for people with strong math backgrounds: physics, engineering, math, comp sci, etc. Finance is where the money is. However, you have to want to do the work which means you have to find it inherently interesting. Not sure how many people with serious physics backgrounds are really that intrigued by money.

+ 1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So a UMich, Illinois, Georgia Tech engineering degree is more valuable in finance than a BBA from UMich-Ross, NYU-Stern, Penn-Wharton? I find that hard to believe.

Wharton is a BS in Econ. More analytical than your average bear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting for kids who have the interest in and aptitude for engineering. But there are plenty of brilliant kids who don't. I don't know what business your friend has, but seems like you'd get a lot of certain kinds of thinkers with his strategy. Great if you're building or designing, not always so wonderful if you want kids who can sell, communicate and/or write.

Picking a major because it's the in thing or a trend, may nab you a first job, but not necessarily a career you love and will thrive in. I say this as a business major and CPA, who was trying to be similarly practical back in the day. Freshman year at a top college, I had five friends start out as engineers, none of them graduated in that major.

Which "top college" has a business major?

Wharton

Michigan, UVA, Berkeley, MIT, Brown, etc.

Instead of listing various top schools, why don't you share your "top school".

Was it a highly analytical program like MIT or Brown (engineering + Econ)?

top-tier undergraduate business schools:
Indiana
UVA
UNC
Michigan
NYU
Cornell
Emory
Penn
Georgetown
MIT
Wash U
Carnegie Mellon
Wisconsin
Berkeley
Georgia Tech
UMD

[Anonymous]

I hate how threads like this that could be interesting because they're about an actual topic and people could share their relevant work experience always devolve into fighting about which schools are more highly ranked and therefore prestigious than others.

Re: the business degree. Employers who are looking for specific skills (such as experience building or at least understanding how one would build a quantitative model) are not necessarily looking for someone from a particular school. They are looking at the way potential hires think. Sometimes "pedigree" matters less in these situations. I know that blows the minds of DCUM folks who cannot comprehend how some engineering or physics student from State U might be chosen over the business major from Wharton but in my experience, it happens. Finance is very mathematical these days. Especially the really specialized stuff.

[Anonymous]

I've read a couple articles in the past year about how employers say that recent college grads, who for some time have been encouraged to major in "hard" science, engineering, math fields, are missing "soft" skills (communication, PR, etc.) and that it's a problem. So there's that to consider as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting for kids who have the interest in and aptitude for engineering. But there are plenty of brilliant kids who don't. I don't know what business your friend has, but seems like you'd get a lot of certain kinds of thinkers with his strategy. Great if you're building or designing, not always so wonderful if you want kids who can sell, communicate and/or write.

Picking a major because it's the in thing or a trend, may nab you a first job, but not necessarily a career you love and will thrive in. I say this as a business major and CPA, who was trying to be similarly practical back in the day. Freshman year at a top college, I had five friends start out as engineers, none of them graduated in that major.

Which "top college" has a business major?

Wharton

Michigan, UVA, Berkeley, MIT, Brown, etc.

Instead of listing various top schools, why don't you share your "top school".

Was it a highly analytical program like MIT or Brown (engineering + Econ)?

top-tier undergraduate business schools:
Indiana
UVA
UNC
Michigan
NYU
Cornell
Emory
Penn
Georgetown
MIT
Wash U
Carnegie Mellon
Wisconsin
Berkeley
Georgia Tech
UMD

Guess that's why you couldn't hack it in engineering. Can't follow simple instructions.