Best Double Major with Finance? (2024)

Hopefully I can help you out here, as I have completed 3 years of my UG, and previously had a double concentration in Accounting & Finance, before changing it to Finance & Economics.

First off, I think you're uninformed, and need to do more research on different careers, because corporate finance is very different from the IB world, and they require different backgrounds. First, you should research these careers in depth and figure out which one appeals to you the most, and then tailor yourself to be a competitive candidate for entry-level positions and recruitment.

For careers in corporate finance, an accounting degree and CPA designation is by far the most popular and intuitive route, because they give you the knowledge you will need to do FP&A, and various ad hoc strategic projects. You don't need to know Macaulay's Duration, or Black-Scholes if you're going to be a financial analyst at some F500 company. Perhaps capital budgeting classes, or forecasting, and other finance classes of the non-capital markets nature could help you understand the importance of time value of money, but Finance and Economics aren't as prevalent for those who work in Corp Fin.

If you want to work in Capital Markets, or IB/PE, an accounting degree does not provide that much value since you don't require tax knowledge, or advanced financial accounting theory. If you lean towards this side of the career spectrum, I would suggest getting a double major in Finance and Economics, because the degrees will increase your understanding of global macroeconomics, and capital markets.

All included, completing two majors in the standard time frame will help you somewhat because it is proof you worked harder than otherwise. However, you have to realize that tax and financial accounting theory don't mean sh*t all to anyone in investment banking.

Early on, I was in both Accounting and Finance because I didn't want to pigeonhole myself, and I was unsure of which career I wanted to target. In reality, the two majors do not work that well with each other. If you don't want to get a CPA designation, drop your accounting major, and boost your GPA with economics classes. If you want a CPA designation, I wouldn't do a double major at all, just take accounting classes and boost your GPA with electives.

But then again, if you really enjoy them both, and are getting top grades, then there's no reason not to continue taking classes in all three streams.

I would say no..my undergrad is nontarget and my masters will be a target but having much of my work overlapping topics with undergrad. part of why I'm doing it is for the networks, but also I think the nontargets don't have as much rigor in classes as the targets. That's why firms get high-quality from target recruits

with that said I could have been much better off with a Computer Science or Engineering degree to be honest. STEM is also fine. And then I could just do the same MS program and cover all the business I need to know. Sociology/Psychology also can line up with management/strategy focused business topics.

In Chicago, a Comp Sci major is going to be what is most interesting to firms, especially since you are at a non-target. Even though non-target isn't as big an issue in some firms in Chicago, be aware that if you get the interview there is already a strike against you. Ace your classes.

There is an old saying in Chicago- 'Teaching a programmer how to trade is a lot easier than teaching a trader how to program.' And you could probably hear the same thing in NY.

There is an old saying in Chicago- 'Teaching a programmer how to trade is a lot easier than teaching a trader how to program.' And you could probably hear the same thing in NY.

Ditto for NYC. Although we're less of an algo town. It's more "teaching a math major how to trade is easier than teaching a trader calculus."

CS is a smart major, especially if you're at a strong engineering school like Georgia Tech.

The CS is totally worth it, even as a minor. Just ace your courses.

If you land in Chicago, U of Chicago Fin Math is the program that you will want. It is tops here. Northwestern has a very well-respected Master's program in Financial Engineering, it is in the engineering school and focuses a little more on corporate problems. U of Chicago's Fin Math program, which is through the Math department, and heavier on theory. But, I haven't been to either school, this is just what I hear about them. They can afford to be very, very picky and the acceptance rate is in the single digits in some years. Those are the 1st tier. Michigan is not exactly local, but it seems to get great press and is respected here too. I would take that over Urbana ( Sorry, if you are reading this IP)

UIUC is a good back- up, and DePaul has a new program that is gaining some respect, but they are definitely second tier.

But I wouldn't worry about it, right now. If you get into a firm and prove yourself, you will probably develop relationships with people from U of C, Northwestern, et al. A personal recommendation will go a long way, if you ace the GRE's...

Forgot to add.

Your school's program is in the bottom 10% of the top 100. There are something like 1100 engineering schools in the U.S., from Stanford to DeVry... So, your school is really not that bad.

A CS minor is worthless unless you have the data structures and algorithms courses to back it up.

For any sort of coding role- including quant development and algo trading, it is all about the interview. And then it's all about being able to produce. You need to be able to kick ass and take names against CS majors in a coding-heavy interview.

You need to know the rules of object oriented programming.

You need to know order of complexity like the back of your hand.

You need to know data structures like the back of your hand.

You need to understand some of the idiosyncracies of Java or C++.

You need to show insights that your interviewer hasn't even thought of.

You need to have a decent background in numerical methods.

So my recommendation to you is that if you do CS, don't do it halfway. A minor isn't bad, but you need to be able to demonstrate that you are a competent developer in your own right. That doesn't mean a major, but it means more than just doing the bare minimum.

Take Intro to Programming and OO, Data Structures, CS Theory I and II, and a numerical methods course. Then do a project.

i appreciate it a ton you guys are helping me out... I am one to definitely not do the bare minimum with a minor if i need to take more classes, im in it to learn and to better help me in interviews. I will probably be meeting with an advisor to talk to him about what specific classes i need to take for the minor along with the ones you can hopefully help me out with in the following question.

What are the necessary programs i need to learn that will best help me for what I want to do (C++ etc...) and that I will bring up in my meeting with an advisor so he can tell me what specific classes entertain these Thanks again

More than anything, you need to do some projects. Try building a bond analytics calculator using model/view/controller that spits out duration, convexity, and dv01 for a plain vanilla bond.

But don't cop out and do it in VBA for Excel. Do it in Java Swing using the design patterns and data structures they teach you in class.

to be blunt, when people say "i'm not terrible with math" they are usually not good enough at math to excel in an undergraduate math program. there are many rewards to majoring in math, but the tradeoffs are huge. it will take you a whole lot of studying to beat the curve in math, much more so than finance. unless you're going to be some sort of a quant, i don't think it's much of an advantage (though it is more impressive), and may have a very negative impact on your GPA and free-time available to study for finance interviews.

most math majors i knew at my undergrad school (a top 50 non-target) graduated sub 3.0 and ended up pursuing careers as math teachers because they didn't have any other options. that being said, a math-finance double major is very impressive if you can keep your GPA up and will provide you with more opportunities than finance only, especially in fields that require more quant horsepower.

dwgreene14:Understand this: a 33 on the math section of ACT means nothing when it comes to being a math major. Sure, math majors take classes calc, multi calc, diff eq. But then they go into incredibly theoretical stuff like complex analysis, knot theory, number theory, differential geometry, etc. That sh*t is not on the ACT. I think you'd be good to stick with Applied Math and Finance.

OP:Bottom line, don't sacrifice your GPA for the sake of a math major. Yeah, if you take financial stats classes that are heavy in math (covering Black Scholes, etc.) or maybe a couple math classes that may be relevant, that could be beneficial for S&T, especially prop shops. As far as banking, it will look impressive if you have good grades, no doubt. But bankers don't use anything above arithmetic, so it's not like you'd use it on the job. It just depends on how risky you are. No one is going to hire you with a crappy GPA, no matter what your major is.

If you have a passion for math and want to be a quant (HF, Prop shop, S&T) go for it. Otherwise you are wasting your time and will kill your grades if you aren't committed to it.

I AP'ed out of my math reqs in college, but once you get into calc 3, diff eq, linear algebra, and beyond, sh*t gets haaaard. I had a bunch of engineering, CS, and pre-med buddies who complained about the math classes as much as orgo.

dwgreene14: Nothing wrong with math/finance. I would make sure you do well in your finance classes relative to your math classes though. The math skills aren't very useful by themselves if you can't apply them. A math major certainly won't hurt you for IB, but IB math is + - / * ^. It's much more beneficial for more quant-related roles.

MSc in Financial Mathematics will be more impressive than a Double Degree in Finance and Math

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/maths/Degrees/MSc_Financial_Mathematics.aspxhttp://finmath.stanford.edu/

RexAlpha: a msc in fin mathematics would take an extra year, which i can't really afford.

I know that a math major would be a lot of work, but I also want to learn something a bit more challenging in school than just some basic finance and accounting coursework. The only thing that worries me is that if i do screw up with this, then my chances for ib or consulting would go down the drain.

Zekai:If you think Black Scholes is the basics of basics. Tell me how you derive Black Scholes? Are you familiar with stochastic process? Brownian motion? equivalent martingale measure? stochastic integral representations? Girsanov Theorem? Ito's formula? Feynman Kac? forward and backward SDE? Probably not...Black Scholes is deeper than you think.

OP:If you are going to do IB, then Math is a waste of time. If you are going to do S&T, then it probably will help if your GPA is 3.5+. The thing about Math majors: there are ppl who don't study at all and get 'A's, there are people who study all the time and get 'B's. Sometimes you just get the stuff... like you speak the language. If you are gonna do it, I recommend you to take easy part of math undergrad course such as combinatorics, number theory, probabilities, stats for the sake of your GPA. Btw, calculus, linear algebra, or ODE are not really math, since they are not really proof based classes.

OP, if you want to do mathematics major than do it! There is this handy thing in life called dropping classes.....if it gets to hard you can either give up and learn how to deal with defeat or say f*ck that sh*t and steam roll that bitch over with a mathematics degree handed to you when you graduate.

Also, remember some the greatest mathematicians didn't study maths till there mid twenties(Euler and Fermat come to mind).

But, again great mathematicians do not to math for popularity/Wall Street, but for knowledge.

I'm very confident mathematicians that are on Wall Street are still studying maths on there own time.

So, I think you should do the math major and ignore these idiots that are saying you will fail.

I have a degree in both. What I was left with was the ability to learn different approaches to problem solving. On the other hand, I hated things that didn't have any practical usage in my everyday (linear algebra, knot theory etc.). Which means you need to have a passion for this, the drive to sit up late at the library going over problems untill you get it. Do you have the drive at 10pm? 1am? 7am?. Math is a bitch, unless you're Asian.

Contrary to most believes, college is a place of learning. Not just drinking, banging hot/ugly chicks and waking up late. Make the most of it (learning experience), you wont go back. I would beat the living daylight out of my future kids if I found out they were wasting my money in college and majoring in art (I'm sure your parents would too).

Haha, I see the Asian joke didn't go down with you.

Fair enough, regarding linear algebra, but I can't say I use matrices (decompositions), vectors or affine/projected space in my everyday calculations in S&T. Of course there are exceptions like least squares, but then again... who cares? The math skills you need is addition, subtraction, division and multiplication and mix them up for good measure.

If you're at the University of Chicago or NYU, do Finance/Econ.

If not, CS is a tough degree and it gives you a bit of a put against another bank recession.

But yes, you have to do the engineering math sequence. And you have to do Systems programming (C and threading) and you have to do data structures (C++ and pointer hell) and you have to do algorithms/theory (I thought it was fun brain teasers but most people found it impossible.)

The good news is that C++ has gotten easier. Back when I was your age (2004), we had to code everything up in PICO on a black and white screen. Then we had to compile. And the compiler would tell us we had made five spelling mistakes. And you'd spend about 1/2 the time it took for you to write the code inserting semicolons, fixing typos, and looking up documentation and man. pages on which functions took which parameters.

Oh well, it beat coding by punchcard and assembly.

Now with eclipse, visual studio, and completion lines, you don't have to put up with that BS. You also get to run stuff in debug mode. They've taken out a lot of the drudgery, but you need to think like an engineer or a mathematician more than ever.

Do not use CS in high school to compare to university if you want to major in computer science. I think you would be better off in software engineering if you want to code. CS in university is more math than programming in my opinion.

Also, you will impress just with a nice GPA as a CS major. You don't need the double major, this isn't liberal arts.

If you think that double majoring in statistics will lower your GPA then don't do it. GPA>Double Major

With that being said, statistics are boring. If possible, get an internship during the school year. Taking classes and working part-time is more impressive than having 2 majors. I also think it would be more beneficial to spend your extra time taking online Wall Street Prep classes. They teach real job skills and you can put it on your resume.

It doesn't sound like you are actually interested in statistics. Are you even interested in finance?

You are still young, and I think a stats major will give you a lot more flexibility down the road if you ever decide to leave the industry.

If you do choose to double major you should do Finance+Accounting.

Better yet, major in Finance and something else that also interests you.

I'm a junior at Stern with a finance and economics major so my opinion will be biased. However, I dealt with the same issue as you when I was a freshman (for me it was between econ, marketing, and accounting).

Personally, I agree with others that you should pick a major that interests you and for that reason only. I find that if you want it for getting internships, than an accounting major won't be terribly beneficial anyway. Much of the accounting knowledge you'll need can be picked up easily through guides (but so can relevant finance info). So just pick something that you'll enjoy.

I'm taking economics because of the available classes at both Stern and CAS. You'll have the opportunity to take classes like Economics of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll, Sports Economics, Game Theory, Gender Choices, Urban Economics, Behavioral Finance, etc. (you get the idea). Those classes had awesome names and the ones I've taken have been extremely enjoyable so far.

Also, I took Financial Statement Analysis (FSA) hoping I'd get some advantage during recruiting, but it wasn't particularly mindblowing. Main lesson: read 10-Ks because they're awesome. There you go, 3 credits worth of knowledge right there. Talking about this makes me regret taking the class...my teacher was good and it wasn't her fault, but I definitely could have used my elective credits on something I found more interesting.

Anyway, I'd personally recommend being a double major because its so easy to get a second business major at Stern with a minor as you'll still have the opportunity to travel abroad easily / take a few random classes along the way.

There's my $0.02 too.

Thanks for the advice guys! I'll look into what kind of majors/minors I can get at CAS and the other nyu schools and see if any really interests me!

How are accounting classes at Stern? Gotta keep that GPA up.

honestly, drop the double major and play the field of new women you'll be meeting.

but really, obviously that's probably a good/ambitious idea, however:

1)consider the work load(I was a double major in busniess econ and CS but found the workload insane and am doing a CS minor instead)2)consider what this will do to your GPA (you're not an engineering major so a lowish 3.2 or so GPA won't look good)3)consider going into college and doing a major or minor you find enjoyable. buddy of mine dropped his double major (finance and math) and did a finance major and history minor instead. he actually enjoyed 8:30 class and got a great offer. so stay open minded

in entry level S&T, the majority of your programming will be done in VBA - something you don't need to major/minor in CS for. If you want the more quantitative desks, you will be needing more MATH/STATISTICS than CS.

Again, this is referring to S&T at an investment bank; if you are looking for a prop desk (leaning on algorithmic trading), then it's a entirely different story - you will need to master C++ for that.

Most schools it is not really a double major, just a double concentration within business. My school you only have to take 4 extra classes to get the dual-concentration listed.

Either way, you should definitely do it. Sitting through SA training the other week and now spreading comps all day I would say the accounting concentration is just as if not more relevant than the finance concentration. You will understand how to work around financial statements a lot better. Definitely recommend picking up accounting.

I think it's worth having a technical major if you want to join a specific coverage group or a specific area of ER, i.e. chemical engineering for midstream O&G, computer science for software companies, etc...

This is just my subjective view, not sure what the actual, evidence-based trend is.

For investment banking, there are all kinds of majors that break into investment banking, but the most common majors are probably finance and economics. Although an imperfect indicator, being a finance or economics major is nevertheless an indicator that demonstrates the candidate has an interest in finance/economics/business/etc. and thus creates a logical entry point for investment banking.

With regards to technical majors (I'm assuming you mean quantitative or hard sciences), I think it doesn't hurt as long as you keep the GPA up. Plenty of engineering majors, math majors, etc. break into analyst programs at investment banks each year. It could also give you more flexibility if you decide to pursue an area other than investment banking.

There are some areas of finance that are very quantitative (some types of trading, hedge funds, etc.), so having a computer science or other type of quantitative background may potentially open up those areas. A finance major with solid but not world-class quant skills would have investment banking open to them, but the door might be closed on the more quantitative areas of finance.

Let me just put it this way: The CS degree implies you can code which in turn implies you should have the mental ability to do financial modeling. I went straight to a buy-side shop out of undergrad and I am pretty sure I got a GPA "allowance" for doing a difficult engineering major.

You also don't just stroll into VC - well you can - but I think some operating experience will be very beneficial. If you do the CS degree and you end up applying to a Facebook etc - You can point to the projects you did in college/projects you did for fun to address a need (they are really big on the "hacker" culture). You also get a feel for the industry by doing the major - why are people moving toward a Git workflow? f*cking Clouds, how do they work?

If you did finance undergrad with finance internships then TMT analyst and now you want to be a product manager? It usually doesn't sit very well.

Also, no one cares about GPA after your first job.

debater96:

I was thinking of either double majoring in finance and accounting or finance and math. The only issue with doing finance and math is that they are in separate colleges at my school so I will have to take an extra 30 credits.

So would the finance/accounting or finance/math be more beneficial in the long run?

You

What are you looking to do specifically?

I'm going to assume that since you posted this in the trading section, you are interested in S&T or trading somewhere at some point in time.

If this is the case, a finance degree, unless it's a 4.0 from an Ivy League school, isn't very useful. Nor should it be, the things you learn in most university finance undergrad degrees are not very useful for trading. They are at best a basic foundation upon which you can lay everything else.

Everyone saying not to do a double major - very silly. Honestly if you're really that interested in trading, you could get away with doing math all by itself. The finance is of course helpful for understanding some things, but as I've said before, it's nothing you can't teach yourself in a few hours a week over the course of a month or two in the library. Or even just in your spare time, when you're bored.

Math is far more important than any other subject unless you really want to be in a sales position. Of course, if you're not interested in trading at all, then finance is ok, but the second major (especially math) would really help you stand out, and show intelligence. Networking doesn't help if you don't actually set yourself apart once you get to the interview. Networking only gets you that far.

Hi everyone here,

I also have the same problem. I will transfer to do econ at a target next semester. And I was wondering what should I complement with my econ major. Will something like history/polisci help standing out? I could switch to do a joint major in econ-math or econ-stat. There wouldn't be big changes to my gpa if I do econ-stat. Though my gpa would be 0.1-0.2 lower if I decided to do econ-math. As far as I know stat in undergrad is softer than math (analysis/algebra). Is a stat major much less attractive than a math major?

Also, if you can choose again, will you do a major/minor in CS? I guess a CS degree is really marketable for tech jobs at google/fb but it is a really tough and time consuming major.

Thank you so much for the advice!

swz011:

Math, CS, Engineering, Statistics. At the end of the day it really doesn't matter. No degree will make or break you as a trader.

Math will make you. Accounting won't.

A good internship will count for more than the second major: if you get a job offer you're going to feel a whole lot better than if you had just added a second line to the education section of your resume. If you don't get an internship THEN take classes.

Run this by other people, as the details of your situation make an exact answer hard to say, but for the most part experience > academic credentials for entry level jobs.

Monkey Bizness:

Hi, I am a freshman at a semi-target. As of now, I am a finance major but I am thinking of adding a second major. I am interested in investment banking, so with that said which of the following majors would be most beneficial?
-accounting
-information systems
-marketing
-management
-business analytics (minor)

Thank you in advance!

I would say accounting might be most relevant to banking, but personally would choose information systems. If you ultimately decide to not pursue investment banking, there are a lot of good and in-demand jobs for someone with a technology background and understanding.

Also if you can tack on that analytics minor that would be fantastic. There is a serious demand for analytics positions these days.

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