Pick my major, GOGOGO

[qdmcg]

I have about a month left to pick my major, I'm a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.

Debating between economics and a program called "Policy and Management." Econ is obvious and Policy and Management has so far related almost 100% to Public Policy.

This board seems to be pretty hooked on how useless business\management degrees are, and I really don't want to get a useless degree. However, I took micro last semester and am taking macro this semester, and micro was somewhat interesting but macro is not very interesting to me.

The Policy classes are relatively interesting to me (as far as classes go). How [censored] am I if I major in P&M instead of Econ? If you're going to post "BUSINESS DEGREES SUCK\ARE USELESS." at least explain why you think\feel that way.

Also, I'm minoring in finance (cannot major in it as I started too late and they only accept 10 students\year), so that should hopefully help with jobs out of school.

As far as post-graduate plans, I don't really have many. I want to do some traveling while I'm young, but I think I'll have to work for a few years to get some money\pay off student loans. Graduate school isn't out of the question.

Any advice is appreciated

[bxb]

tl;dr, but u should b a MAFF MAJOR. we r teh kewlest of all majors.

[theben]

If business degrees are useless then I don't even know how to describe the value of a public policy/poly sci field related degree is. Business degrees are useful but at most schools only require marginal literacy for their completion.

[Misfire]

Transfer schools and become a finance major. It's about the only business related degree that can translate into money.

[SuperUberBob]

Anthropology ftw

[The Bandit Fish]

You're at CMU and you're not some sort of Engineering major? Are you feeling ok? MechE ftw!

[Keyser.]

Pseudo-majors like "Policy and Management" are generally pretty bad. I'd stick with econ.

[kbinder]

[ QUOTE ]
tl;dr, but u should b a MAFF MAJOR. we r teh kewlest of all majors.

[/ QUOTE ]

LDO

Between econ and public policy, econ seems to be the no-brainer because you'll have more profitable job opportunities. Even if you're not looking to make assloads of cash, you'll be given more consideration than someone with a watered down major. Additionally, econ will look better on grad school applications.

If the micro and macro courses that you thought were boring were introductory level courses, hold off that judgement until you take the intermediate and advanced classes. There's more math involved (not exactly hard math, but it's more challenging than finding where the supply curve intersects the demand curve), and the theories should be more interesting since you'll explore them at a deeper level. If afterwards you still don't find something in econ that interests you, I'd suggest considering a completely different major than the two you offered.

Somewhat analogously, I considered dropping my math major after being bored from linear algebra and differential equations, but I stuck with it after being rocked by abstract algebra (ended up taking 4 terms of abstract).

[schundler]

Didn't read any of the posts, but I'm going to have to go with biomedical engineering.

letter from the President of the university to incoming freshman:

"...First of all, I'm sure quite a few of you applied as Biomedical Engineering majors. That's terrific! Just one piece of advice: in the name of God, don't do it. Seriously. Do you even know how that major started? Dean Bader and I made it up one night as a complete joke. We were also kinda drunk at the time. The conversation went something like this:

Dean Bader: Dude, I can't believe you just made me do a power hour.

Me: Dude, I can't believe your brother is Diedrich Bader.

Dean Bader: Dude, I love you.

Me: Dude, let's make up a ridiculous major. Like right now.

Dean Bader: Dude, that's brilliant. Let's make it like, something really difficult and annoying.

Me: What about like... Biomedical Engineering. It could be like... biomedical stuff... PLUS ENGINEERING.

Dean Bader: Dude, nobody would take that, that's like... that's like dumb.

Me: You're dumb, dummy.

Dean Bader: Tee hee! "

(Matt Diamond)

[qdmcg]

[ QUOTE ]
You're at CMU and you're not some sort of Engineering major? Are you feeling ok? MechE ftw!

[/ QUOTE ]

its funny because I actually entered the school as an engineering student but ended up transferring out in the first year, i took a materials science engineering class and was bored to tears with the professor\subject matter.

kbinder: Thanks, this is what I was looking for I think. I'll try and stick it out with econ, I can always switch later as the requirements for P&M are pretty easy.