Reply to Why are DCUM parents less inclined to have their child major in business?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Because many are highly educated and well-bred and don’t view college as a trade school.[/quote]

+2 It is an immigrant thing to hyperfocus on ROI and STEM.[/quote]

No it's a common sense thing
Most people want something useful and valuable when paying $$$[/quote]

True. My 20 year old son already sees this. He is majoring in accounting ; he wants a comfortable life where he isn’t struggling financially. He has many interests and activities outside of the classroom and the topics that interest him , he reads online. Sometimes you can’t take all the interesting electives in college. You can still be well rounded even when being practical. [/quote]

Accounting is the backbone for any entity- for or nonprofit. From there you can combine with other interests.  No entity can exist long without proper financial and cash flow planning. This is not a degree for dummies.  Successful accountants can become. cfos and even ceos without even getting an mba. And if you have strong people skills even better. also your job will always exist. strong accountants and fpa roles are actually needed more during a recession. PPs who claim this is a major for dummies and compare it to a trade don't have a clue. It is also gives you very helpful skills for your personal life.[/quote]

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+1 i dont understand why DCUM is so big on Management Consulting but then dont like the Business Degree.  Management Consulting strategy is 100% based on understanding the levers that you can pull that impact your P&L and cashflow, debt etc in order to make your business more appealing to shareholders.  The strongest Mgmt consultants know their accounting and financial statements inside out.  Understanding the accounting rules makes the difference between an Enron fiasco and a business success.  If you work in Management Consulting and do not have an accounting background you will either need to go back to school or change roles eventually.  It would be like trying to practice law without going to law school.[/quote]

That's a somewhat simplistic view of Management Consulting, and the reality is that all new Bain hires go through a 3 month training program (at least it used to be 3 months) where they train you on the Accounting and other aspects you may need.

That said, there are plenty of projects that a company will hire a Bain that are not at all directly related to anything financial.   Perhaps an airline will hire you to come up with a more optimized route network that reduces aircraft downtime, risks of violating employee labor agreements, etc.  You will use quantitative analysis and critical thinking (it can involve thousands of different iterations and network repercussions) and of course your work product should result in the airline reducing costs and increasing revenue...however, your actual project will never directly involve any financial metrics.

Another example... a Fortune 500 company will hire Bain to determine if they should start a new product line/enter a new market.  You will perform lots of quantitative analysis, analyze existing competitors, come up with the $$$ value of the addressable market, etc....but you likely won't ever get into the nitty gritty of their P&L analysis.

There are hundreds of other examples of why a company hires a Bain or equivalent that don't involve much accounting or financial analysis.  [/quote]

I worked for Bain in CPG consulting.  All of the projects touch the P&L in some way.  The customer companies dont want just the quantitative analysis.  You cant even think about the entering a new product line or market without running a straw man P&L.  Also I have noticed that the customer companies hire consultants less and less for anything that cannot prove strong ROI INCLUDING the high fee that the consultants charge.  [/quote]

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