Last Friday we had a very successful welcome to the major event. It was an opportunity to acknowledge an important milestone in our students’ lives: getting into the business school, as well as discuss the COBA culture and what we expect of our students. It also gave our department chairs a chance to pitch their majors. It was a friendly, but spirited, competition to convert “business students” to “accounting”, “economics” or “management” majors.
But all of us: faculty, students and administrators overstate the importance of choosing a major in the course of your future. Think of your choice of a major more as a bureaucratic imperative necessary to graduate than a choice that will forever influence the course of your life. Frankly if I had my way there would only be two undergraduate majors in the College: Accounting and everything else. And there are many days I’m not that convinced about accounting, but I digress….
Why am I so cavalier about choosing a major? Recognize that choosing a major is not the same as choosing a career. Loving to study something is not the same as loving to do it. I love to read the history of World War II, but that doesn’t mean I would have enjoyed fighting in it. To know you love a job requires that you actually do it. This is why I meet successful alumni everyday who are doing something very different than what they studied: accounting grads who are venture capitalists, economics grads who become business school deans, physics majors who do high finance. Sometimes what you study is also what you love to do, but don’t count on it.
This is one of the reasons why I encourage students to think in terms of acquiring skill sets that can be used in a wide variety of careers, rather than specific majors. For example, our data shows that lots of our finance majors go into financial planning. Sales skills are essential in these jobs and sales is taught in marketing, not finance. If you are going out to do this type of work by opening your own financial planning company, you will also need entrepreneurial skills, which are for the most part, taught in management. I could make the same observations for aspiring public accountants–entrepreneurial and sales skills are valuable in almost any career…..so are math, statistics, and writing skills. Making sure you acquire strong sets of general skills is way more important than the label attached to your major.
Paul Jarley, Dean 
“Frankly if I had my way there would only be two undergraduate majors in the College: Accounting and everything else” 🙂 Pretty Funny!
On a whole new note, I am currently in the UCF MBA program and I’ve seen recently a lot of professors adding requirements to their material such as “must purchase the Wall Street Journal” or “must purchase Harvard cases”… A lot of my fellow MBA students and I are wondering why are we asked to purchase these things when the UCF library has TONS of resources, and it make us seriously wonder if there isn’t some kickback happening. Maybe not, but just to let you know it is a cause of concern.
JP
Hello JP:
The college subscribes to the WSJ so that any student should have access to it on-line for free. This is something we just started this year, so there is no need to purchase anything separate. It does require a canvas account for the course however. This is how you set up the free account.
As for HBR Cases, these are pretty standard practice in MBA progams and they are not available in the library. They have to be purchased from Harvard.
Thanks for your prompt response! In this day and age, it’s hard to not be ignored. I’m truly impressed that you care for our comments! (Wish more people were like you 🙂
Paul .. Good blog …..
Geometricallg speaking – MBA Marketability is like the volume of a non- regular , continually changing (some body said this in 500 BC – “only constant is change” ) fuzzy shaped container – composed of breath (accounting to innovative products) , depth ( cocktail conversation to a PhD thesis ) and height ( changes – Google is only 13 years old ! China is the largest emitter of GHG ! ).
Found this blog this morning and thought I’d share: http://www.blogging4jobs.com/job-search/three-degrees-hr-should-consider-hiring-for-the-hr-department/. Sociology, Stats and Marketing….sounds like someone is saying the skills you bring to a job/career are more important than the major you get them in! Then again, being able to relate to people, analyze data, and communicate your ideas are key skills for ANY career.