Why you should major in economics instead of business

In today’s collegiate world, one of the most popular majors is business administration. Every college offers one. A business administration degree will give you a hodgepodge of skills, but won’t give you mastery in any of them. In today’s world, employers are looking for someone who is a specialist, someone who is a master at what they do.

Busy worker with financial statistic background

Be it marketing or finance, today’s job market is incredibly specialized, and the education that you will get from a business administration degree, will sadly not reach the bar. Of course, as with any of life’s big problems, there is always a solution on hand. In my honest opinion, if you hope to go into the business world, you should major in economics as opposed to trying to get a degree in business. Here are a few simple reasons why.

If you want to learn something, nowadays you can learn nearly anything online. Most of the time you won’t even have to pay tuition for online courses, and you can take them at some of the best schools in the world. Schools like MIT and Harvard all offer courses, which are online for free. So why would you decide to waste your hard earned money on a degree that is not well regarded by employers? If anything, a business degree from an average school signifies a lack of originality. Yes I know its slightly different if you are at Harvard or Yale but If you are at a state school, try to go for something harder like economics. I know that it will not be easy, but you are forgetting why you are in college for the first place. Which was to challenge yourself intellectually. Now I can’t guarantee you that a business degree won’t be challenging, but I can absolutely tell you right now, that you will likely sweat through every minute of getting your degree in economics. It never has been an easy subject.

With that being said, if you go to an employer and say look, here is my degree in economics, they will be impressed. They will be even more impressed if you can demonstrate that you know a bit about marketing and communication subjects which you can easily teach yourself. Remember that the goal of a business degree is not to get you to be an expert at anything; it is to get you to be a jack-of-all-trades. If you can go and say that I am an expert at this, this, and this, but I also understand a bit about this subject, and that subject. You would very likely be an extremely valuable employee. Another thing that an economics degree will prepare you for is entrepreneurship. You will learn how to notice gaps in the market quicker than anyone else around. You will notice this, because you will be an expert on the topic of markets. In stark contrast, a person with a business degree, may understand the definition of a market, but is unlikely
to be able to effectively analyze, a complex, or even simple market, as those skills are not taught in their coursework.

To conclude, if you want to work in business, and are looking to get an edge up on your competitors, I strongly urge you to seriously consider the possibility of majoring in economics. It will be harder, but will definitely be worth it.