Students majoring in business have long been considered the laziest and least intelligent students on college campuses. Known for homework easier than coloring books and a high concentration of fraternity men, business majors are often looked down upon by the “nobler” majors such as pre-med and engineering. I’ll admit, the business career path may not be as rigorous or challenging as taking organic chemistry, but that is exactly why business majors are some of the smartest students on campus. Business students have mastered the time-money continuum, and they have chosen their career accordingly.
While students in the natural sciences on pre-med tracks may be set to make six figure salaries at the end of their education, they must be committed to spending at least 11 years getting to this point. During much of that time, they’ll be unpaid or underpaid, with the average medical resident being paid only $67,400. Exacerbated by the rigor of college coursework, unhealthy working hours and stress that comes with the occupation, doctors have some of the highest suicide rates.
When you look at the time to money ratio of a business major, especially accounting or finance, careers in medicine pale in comparison. Consider an investment analyst, one of the most desired careers for college graduates. An investment analyst with only one to three years of experience and limited education beyond a bachelor’s degree can expect to make a median salary of $189,000. While a junior investment analyst and a physician can be found working large numbers of hours, the investment analyst has avoided extra years of schooling and the medical school debt that comes with it.
The previous statements assume that individuals who choose business or healthcare will enjoy their jobs and have no desire to switch career paths. But what happens when this is not the case? Business majors win again. The beauty of a business degree is that it provides endless opportunities to dive deep into a variety of pursuits. Marketing, management and finance majors can develop an interest in a specific field and focus their career on that. Should they want to switch paths, it’s possible.
Those who are focused on medicine and engineering are not as lucky. These individuals, no matter their age, tend to be shoe holed into their careers and feel that they cannot switch because they have already devoted so much time and money to that pursuit. Even if they did decide to leave, they often lack the soft skills and social intelligence that is trained into business students. Doctors and engineers are incredibly intelligent individuals when it comes to their specialty, but many are unable to learn about and subsequently explain other phenomena. These are key skills for individuals in business.
Some may argue that doctors, despite the challenges that come with their career, pursue it because they have an unparalleled commitment to a positive social impact. The same people will continue to criticize those in business for giving up the desire for social good in favor of the money that comes from business. What they don’t realize is that these two things are not mutually exclusive, especially now. Apart from working for a company that directly helps people, businesses and investment firms are being pressured to assess their impact on the environment and society as a whole, opening up career opportunities for those passionate about making progress in these areas. Sure, these careers break the typical mold of what it means to “help people”, but it doesn’t make them any less valid or valuable.
At the end of the day, time is money and money is time. Finding the balance between the two is the key to happiness, and it is different for everyone. Just because business majors have discovered an alternative point on the time-money continuum doesn’t mean that their purpose or nobility disappears. Our future CEOs and Wall Street dealmakers deserve the same respect and attention given to our future doctors and engineers. They aren’t lazy and/or unintelligent, and they certainly don’t do coloring book-level homework. They are equally smart and creative, just in a different way.
This post was originally published on here
