Sometimes, economics is referred to as the ‘queen of social sciences’. People for some reason think that economics students learn about businesses, so its a easier sell. I ended up in banking, because I found that out in the real world no one knows what economics is, and just assumed it is the same as a finance degree. So Economics took me directly into Finance and Banking. Straight off the bat, you need to understand that a finance degree does not guarantee you a big pay check. As a recent UF alum my advice would be for you to go the finance route. Econ seems to be more industry jobs and big picture economic stuff as finance is now zerod in on personal or banking. Uncommon Jobs for Your Finance Degree. Finance and economics are distinctly different disciplines, but share a number of similarities, from the personality types suited for careers in these fields, to the required courses for degrees in finance and degrees in economics. As you start applying to jobs and internships (whether finance or economics related), you'll notice that requirements in the major section will include "or any other business-related major. But the university I plan on transferring into recently started a program where you could earn your bachelors and masters (though without the thesis) in Econ at the same time. Getting an economics degree first costs more because you have to pay for more grad school and it delays the time until you can start earning good money. Currently I work in financial systems more than anything else, but that more so is because of the company I work for. Lots of case study reading and lots of report writing. You don't learn anything very applicable with a econ degree. For an undergraduate degree, I would say that economics is more difficult. Just try to watch for business school recruiting/networking events, and try to take electives that are a bit more finance-geared. That isn't to say that econ is a bad degree or that you couldn't work in finance with an econ degree, but I think people typically use an econ degree as a stepping stone for further schooling (master's, law school, etc). Accounting 2. Do a lot of research on this before deciding major. The majority of work in the finance industry is low paying, menial stuff like glorified admin or data entry. If you do go Econ route I would echo what has already been said and try to double major in computer science, the finance major has a really thorough curriculum regarding balance sheet,income statement, cash flow statements and projections where the Econ falls a little short given its larger emphasis on more theoretical topics. Both finance and Econ are hard but that is irrelevant. The subreddit for discussion related to college. He was surprised that they visited the business school religiously to hire but didn’t come to hire Econ students. I work in corporate finance, similar the FP&A. If you’re going to work in finance, then just study finance. One of the most puzzling parts about deciding between earning a Finance degree versus an Accounting degree is the similarity in potential job titles. In finance programs more people come from/are currently in industry (at least in my experience) and they tend to have more of an emphasis on recruitment/networking. I've never really heard anyone say finance is more respected then econ, if anything the opposite. The rainmakers you see in movies and hear about in the papers are the top 5% of people in the top 5% of finance roles. You will have a leg up on the ignorant Econ majors. But this depends, if you want to go into finance then econ major is good if you focus on Finance classes. As someone in the Rutgers Business School surrounded by a lot of Finance majors, do Econ. I started as a Finance major but took intro Econ and really enjoyed it so I decided to switch. First be careful which economics major you are considering, when I was there you could major in Econ through the business school or through the liberal arts college. Press J to jump to the feed. The thing is, the university only has a limited amount of space to accept transfer students and will only accept those with really high GPA. This is because economics is all about choices and decision-making. I know people who have changed from economics for that reason. For example, Public Finance, Monetary/Fiscal Policy-related courses are great, and normally taught in economics departments. I would like to get into an FP&A role witha finance degree + programming skills, revisiting this.. I regret deeply that I didn’t do any internships in college, or any Econ related volunteer work to get my foot in the door somewhere. Difference Between Finance vs Economics “Finance” is a subject which broadly deals with concepts like time value of money, interest rates, risk and return, optimum use of money, different exchange rates and how to make the best use of their differences, etc. To me, most upper level class seemed like a specialized repeat of advanced micro and macro Econ classes. More is expected out of you quantitatively going this route. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. The best way to do this is to do an integrated bachelor/master degree program where you go through it in five years. Economics minors, however, are available. My dream job is to be an in-house council, so eventually, corportate law. What if I’m not so keen on math? When it's time for college students to decide their majors, many go with finance or economics … Press J to jump to the feed. The liberal arts college one was way easier, especially the classes for the last two years. As long as you’re going through the business school your networking opps will be the same. It taught me extremely valuable lessons for managing my personal finances and portfolio. If you want to learn more things other than finance, or you have yet to decide your area of study, studying economics gives you a good exposure to many more areas. Do you think I would have a better advantage if I participate in this program? On the other hand, the same university offers a BA economics degree, which is much easier to transfer into. My econ major was basically advanced statistics with higher levels of macro and micro econ courses where we studied international economies and the variables that affected their economic performance. I remember my economics professor asking why McKinsey didn’t come to campus. Econ requires loads of math. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://catalog.ufl.edu/UGRD/colleges-schools/UGLAS/ECO_BA/#modelsemesterplantext. Nothing is more painful than interviewing an undergrad with a 4.0 GPA that doesn't understand basic shit like ROE & Leveraged investments. YMMV but that’s what I saw a couple years ago. I am going to a state school: Finance or Econ is both available but Econ comes with a pre-law boost. Sure, I had some stuff to learn, but it was easier for me to pick up some accounting than it would have been for someone else to pick up some Economics and Econometrics. I think the consensus seems to be that the econ undergrad is generally very theoretical and broad, whereas a degree like finance is much more applicable and specialized. I met employers that wouldn’t visit the Econ department and stuck only to the business school. Economics is far ahead of finance in this regard with an average growth of 20%. The cost of obtaining an advanced degree in economics or finance varies depending on the educational institution. I'd say the hardest thing being an econ major looking for Finance roles, is convincing hiring managers you know what you are doing. You can bridge the gap by illustrating how well you can sort data, be an excel wizard (pivot tables, index match etc. So I have a very solid understanding of how they relate, are similar, and differ. The Fed banks will take a few undergrad econ majors for 2 years before they send you back to get a masters, but from what I hear its mostly just them teaching you how to apply the theory you learned. They both appeal to me in their own ways. I enjoyed finance courses much more than accounting or economics so that is why I committed. Econ is harder, will lower your GPA, has fewer people in the program that are actively recruiting for jobs, and is much less relevant to what you want to do. And if you do decide to go the law school route, Econ has pre-law boost that you stated. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. I'd suggest minoring in Finance, if your school allows it. It’s not! My dream job is to be an in-house council, so eventually, corportate law. You’ll also need to be a strategic thinker with a strong understanding of statistics and good presentation skills. An economics and finance double major is possibly the best degree combination in the commercial field. UF doesn’t allow a minor in finance; I’m not sure if that changes your recommendation. You will most likely not have to worry about business school prereqs and general requirements on top of your actual major requirements. It’s a respectable degree and landed me a great job right out of school. Source: economics and business undergrad, soon to be MBA. I was lucky enough to have programming skills that overlooked some of my lack of accounting/ finance knowledge, but it wasn't always easy. In fact, many students take those “easier” classes instead of the classes offered by the math department. Yes you could probably go down the econ route and still end up with FP&A positions, but Finance will have you directly networking with more people in the realm of corporate finance. I got a bachelors degree in Economics. However, it is generally much lower … If this helps, my future plans is to work on the corporate side of finance, possibly FP&A. At one time I was double majoring in finance and econ but I found out I had the option to change to a minor in econ and graduate a semester early. If finding a well-paying job is important to you, I think ultimately, the decision between which major won't be a life-changing one. I'm a Senior Finance student at UF, I can tell you it is the harder path of the two, having been through it and having friends going down the econ route. Not all schools require it, but I would make sure to take Econometrics and other statistics related courses. However, for some financial jobs economics is a massive bonus and there are finance schemes that ask for econ/finance (or numerical) related degrees. And does it even matter since it’s coming from a non-target university? I was an Econ major as well and was disappointed at the lack of finance related courses that were offered. To become a financial analyst, you’ll need at least a bachelor’s degree in finance, or a similar subject such as economics or statistics. ), and maybe even a little SQL and vba, as that will help save you a lot of time when it comes to the duties in FP&A. Thanks for replying! I'd probably recommend to go for the Finance degree. Economics demands precision of thought that is useful for just about any job. It's not that I'm worried about that, just curious as I've seen a lot of job descriptions mention presentations and powerpoint. Finance vs. Accounting: Job opportunities. They're very different fields and the finance major will better prepare you for your end goals. Those of my friends who didn't want a career in academics went on to obtain master's degrees in business related majors - MBA, marketing, accounting, etc. Can you elaborate please? But Finance can be the same way if you aren't careful. Financial manager. Plus, I love learning about economics. I felt like my accounting and finance courses have been the most helpful in the real world. Finance 3. Still work alongside the CFO when it comes to your normal finances like balance sheets and income statements. As an economist who is well known in my town, I get calls from economics majors (or their parents) asking for help finding jobs. If FP&A is your goal the finance route is much more straightforward, a good handful of my fraternity brothers all got FP&A roles right out of school with that major. Business gave me all of my finance and accounting courses along with my global management, marketing, and MIS pieces. They wanted jobs that could be achieved with any degree and thought the chances of a 2:1+ were better doing a different degree. If you're trying to work in finance then major in finance. They both tend to over lap and offer a lot of careers. Why would you choose it over finance? On the other hand, the same university offers a BA economics degree, which is much easier to transfer into. Accounting is usually considered the best business degree because of its versatility. My undergrad was a top school but the undergrad business program was ranked higher. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the FinancialCareers community. The business college Econ was pretty similar to the finance major except for a few classes. Although they are often taught and presented as separate disciplines, economics and finance are interrelated and inform and influence each other. So I go to a community college and plan on transferring to a non-target state school (University of Florida). If I do double major (or minor), what degree would be best to be paired up with an Econ? In economics, you will need to learn modules that are not directly related to finance, such as international trade or the theory of firm. I was also able to take Public Finance, Monetary Economics, Forecasting, and Accounting. Im an economics major and spending the entire upperclassman years taking financial economics courses like asset pricing, corporate finance, portfolio management, etc. With an accounting degree you can land finance jobs, but it doesn't work the other way around. In my experience finance is definitely more of a respected degree than econ. A finance undergrad will touch on many topics within finance, but not go overly in depth into any. Either degree would be beneficial in landing a future job. Employers didn’t really care that I was an economics double major but did care that I had the business school (finance) on my resume. This isnt true at least in the UK; a degree from a good university is seen as a generic badge of smartness and no large corporation cares about what the subject area was unless it's something vocational like engineering or law. You can easily connect it with these subjects (and maybe more): business, finance, mathematics, political science, sociology, psychology, history, and philosophy. I was an econ major who currently works as a lead Financials analyst. A business degree is valuable (sometimes even necessary) for some jobs, but it is much more limiting. Depth into any undergraduate degree, they both cover a multitude of related subjects have. 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