Reply to Why no business major at (most of) the Ivies

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Because the Ivies are not trade schools.  [/quote]

lol how dumb is this statement.[/quote]

The idea of "trade schools" as less than, not very academic, and only for people who actually have to work for a living is very outdated.

Currently, the Ivies are trade schools that mostly produce consultants.  When old school WASP rich people elevated the intellectual nature of Ivies, they were not thinking about vast quantities of graduates entering a rent-a-brain profession like consulting where the graduates would only stay in the industry for a few years.  They were thinking of intellectual vocations like being a minister, lawyer, doctor, PhD professor, etc.  Or being hereditarily wealthy and joining the family business after receiving a traditional liberal arts education befitting a gentleman (women did not have direct access at some of these schools until fairly recently).

America has always had less stigma about rich people being self-made or being from industries that are connected to the trades.

When you look at the mythology around Wall Street and IB/PE, Silicon Valley and the dropout tech bro billionaires, and other culturally relevant businesses where smart people aspire to work, it's hard to say that people value Ivy League style academic intensity much anymore.  What they still value is being smart, rich, and connected.  None of those three qualities require an academic/intellectual outlook on life.[/quote]
This is so…wrong. You’re just merging pre professional to trade school. Harvard doesn’t teach you HOW to be a consultant, nor an investment banker. There isn’t accreditation body that says you went to Harvard, therefore you are qualified to go into finance or tech. The ivies still dominate the “intellectual” careers you care about. They’re quite good at most everything, which is the point. The only mythology is your personal obsession with the tech class dropouts- harvard’s graduation rate is around 97-98%[/quote]

PP.  My POV here is that "trade school" as a social-class-related put-down is a slam on/synonym for  "pre-professional" majors that are 4 year undergrad degrees.

True trade school is literally going to a plumber journeyman course.  Or maybe pilot training.  Or a two year culinary arts degree.  Things that people do not study at bachelor's degree granting institutions. BBA degrees from state flagships are not at all "trade school" synonymous from my POV.  As with liberal arts degrees, you've studied a variety of things that generally relate to your interests  but you are not particularly deeply qualified to do any particular business job.  Unless maybe you attained a CPA due mainly to your studies.

There's no question that there is mythology in American popular culture around the idea of tech bro college dropouts.  I know there aren't that many of them.  My point is...there is cool factor now around personal statuses that don't require intensely intellectual accomplishments such as mastering Ancient Greek or having PhD-level academic training used to inspire.  In fact, the wages and job markets for many types of PhDs are pretty terrible.  Which again suggests the American scene generally devalues intellectual accomplishments in favor of business accomplishments (loosely defined).  The Ivies just have the majors they have because of the weight of history, tradition, and residual snobbery.  That is the answer to OP's question.

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