Business degrees, because they seem broad and easily applicable to the real world, are steadily gaining popularity among college students. However, if you’re considering majoring in business, there are several things you should understand before making your final decision. Below, you will find an unbiased list of the advantages and disadvantages of declaring a major within the business department:
Advantages:
1. The career possibilities are flexible.
Business degrees tend to be rather general, so your job opportunities after graduating college should be quite broad, as opposed to the job opportunities of graduates of highly specialized and specific programs (like hotel management, golf course administration, etc.). This wide range of possibility is especially appealing to students who lack a definite idea of what they want to do for work after college. The business degree allows them to keep their options relatively fluid.
2. The internships are top notch.
Although the circumstances definitely vary from college to college, business programs are generally well-respected for their ability to place students in high quality internships. And because internships help students to develop real world connections, these students tend to have a decent chance of obtaining a job directly out of school.
3. Your knowledge will be applicable.
Business degrees also have an advantage in that the classes required to graduate from the program are usually directly applicable to real life jobs in the business world. Unlike some majors, like philosophy, for example, the education you receive as part of a business degree has a direct and obvious application to real life situations.
Disadvantages:
1. The market is flooded.
Business, for better or for worse, tends to be the fallback major for many students who don’t know what else to choose as a major (students who, arguably, should not have enrolled in college in the first place). Business is also popular because students assume that business degrees guarantee high paying jobs, a fact which we’ll discuss later. In any case, there are multitudes of job applicants with business degrees, and employers have differing opinions on the business degree’s merits. Some employers prefer candidates to have classic business educations, but a growing number of others are overlooking business majors in favor qualified applicants with more diverse and well-rounded educations. So, while a business degree may make you more qualified in some instances, in others, it could cause you to be overshadowed by more unconventional applicants.
2. You don’t need a business degree to work in business.
As noted above, unlike some other fields, the business field is generally open to non-business-degree-holding applicants. This is largely due to the fact that – unlike in other fields, such as healthcare, engineering, or statistics – new employees in the business sector can be easily trained for the specific requirements of their job. Business skills can be taught to outsiders relatively simply, and what’s more, even if an applicant does have a business degree, it usually does not negate the need for training related to their unique position.
3. You probably won’t make as much money as you’ve been told.
Some of the most miserable college students are the business majors who hate their field but stick with it because they’ve been told for years that a business degree guarantees a good job after college. Unfortunately for them, this simply isn’t true. In rankings of the highest paying occupations in the country, business rarely even makes the list. In fact, according to one such study (conducted by PayScale), business majors even make less than majors in “useless” fields like philosophy and history.
Although majoring in business definitely has its advantages, its disadvantages are also undeniable. Therefore, like any major, it is important to decide on a business major for personal reasons, not societal ones. A business degree can be very practical, but if you choose it for the wrong reasons (money, fear of not being able to enter the business world without a business degree, etc.), you could find yourself severely disappointed.
