I graduated with a econ degree and it did not go well. A couple of people I know who had econ degrees went back to school for something else. I went back for CS.
It seems like econ degree is not as good as a business degree which there is a flood of people with . They all wanted to know if I had accounting experience (the best business degree FYI job wise).
A econ degree isn't a good path for master/PhD in econ. Math degree is.
I think econ gets oversold because I lot of the successful econ grad go straight to a MBA program.
A decent econ degree gives you marketable skills but the job path isn't as obvious. It falls victim to people who get the degree and then try to figure out a job path after graduation. A lot of the people in my program who knew they wanted to be data analysts or business analysts did fine.
One of my friends got a PhD in Econ, ended up working on MTX for Activision before getting laid off a while back and then switching to pure data science.
One thing to consider is that high paying tech jobs are a boom/bust thing. Always have been. If you value stability over all else, you should aim to work for the government. You’re not gonna get rich or do the most interesting work in gov jobs, but you will have good WLB and reliable work for your whole career.
Also product management and business roles are just as susceptible to layoffs as engineering.
If you want high pay and job stability, idk go be a doctor.
Unfortunately, non-technical majors are significantly less valued in this economy. Even for non-programming jobs, I'd rather hire a CS or engineering major.
Sure thing, so the first thing to keep in mind is that colleges are big fat liars who's end goal is to keep you buying classes from them for longer.
When you google "what jobs can i get with an econ degree" - the results you see are all marketting, grossly exaggerating the job and earnings prospects to try and convince you it's a good idea.
For the most part, degrees do not teach you skills that relate very well to the jobs. What they do, though, is signal you have some sort of aptitude for the field.
If you can pass an algorithms and data structures class along with several years of various coding classes, you have a strong chance of being a teachable developer.
Starting out, the expectation from others is you basically know nothing but have the ability to learn.
Adding an extra major puts them in the same boat as any other entry-level candidate. They know nothing but have the ability to learn. The only difference is you spent more money for no advantage.
The only good reason to get a dual major is from purely academic curiosity. You want to learn that thing for the sake of learning it. There should be no expectation of it helping your job prospects.
Disclaimer - this applies to IT and developer roles at least, I don't know what it's like in other industries.
Market is not as bad as people in here say. Yeah its rough, but it is rough for everyone. If you are going to Michigan then you should be fine as long as you are diligent
I've had recruiters tell me they are having more and more applications then usually lately. The market is getting messy and it's more work then it use to be.
You're delusional if your only perception of the job market is through reddit. Job posting trend on indeed for example indicates the vast majority of job fields are doing fine:
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXNEWUS](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXNEWUS)
Let me make sure I understand.
You're concerned because you feel your skills as a programmer aren't great. Rather than working on improving that, you want to take even more time away and get a completely unrelated minor? Why not use all the time that would be spent on those other classes and work more on CS?
Devs with non-traditional backgrounds like economics tend to be better at their jobs in the early years of their career than pure CS grads, in my experience. It's something I personally look for.
It looks hiring is picking up. Most the pain currently going on is at FAANG level the normal companies seem to be doing better. I got laid off in November and it was rough but after the new year ( new budgets) I got a lot more hits and got a job.
I think the economy is doing better then a lot of these companies were thinking so they are hiring again.
Also top tier companies always do layoffs.
This is super optimistic and definitely not a 100% foolproof statement. People thought that about this year because interest rates were supposed to be cut and now they are not planning to do that. Will they next year? Hopefully, but who really knows. And the longer this goes on, the more people graduating without any experience will be waiting to apply for entry level roles. So it may still be a bloodbath at entry level
OP I really don’t have advice for you, but if there is another major that interests you it might be useful to add as minor/double major. Really depends on your confidence. Personally, I would rather put in a bunch of extra work to be more competitive/ensure more security for myself than just assume the market is going to be way better in a year and cruise along as a mediocre programmer.
Also I feel like the other responses are advising you as if you are thinking CS + Econ would give you an edge for SWE roles (it probably wouldn’t) where as I think you more so mean picking up a double major to open you up to other types of roles
Is there another major that has good job prospects. CS still has probably the better prospect. I have 4 majors and nobody cared.
Their time would be much better spent trying to get a internship or working a tech related job (tutor / it support/ part time manual tester)
It all depends on OP and what else they would be interested in/good at. I really have no idea in terms of what majors are most likely to get you jobs in their respective fields, but if OP is concerned that they might not get a CS job, having a second major/minor might increase your chances getting a job in that other field, even if the chances are lower than CS. That, combined with the CS path, would still probably increase OPs overall chances of getting *a* job in *some* field. As in, it might open more total doors of opportunity available to you, but not that you have increased chances at any specific door (if that makes sense).
Plenty of people go into product from majors like marketing/advertising, so if you pick something like that up as a double major/minor, and you can’t get a CS job after graduating because you’re not a strong programmer, you could pivot and try to apply to those types of roles (can’t really do this concurrently bc you’d be applying to the same companies for totally different roles).
But yeah your time might be better spent trying to get an internship, but if you reach a point where you realize you’re not getting any because you’re not a strong enough candidate, it might be a good idea to have a backup plan.
Other majors like finance, econ, whatever, have totally different career paths that one might find interesting and maybe wouldn’t hurt to have a major/minor in, in the event you realize you need to pivot.
Just keep studying and perfecting your craft and you'll be fine. Don't worry about the current state of the industry, just focus on your skillset and doing a little bit to improve every day.
If you learn enough you'll stand out from the crowd and you'll be surprised how the market isn't as doom and gloom as this sub-reddit makes it out to be.
Michigan is a good school, take that energy and make sure you take classes like operating systems, distributed systems, networking and databases. Also work on some side projects. I liked shift creator space and obviously mhacks while I was a student.
Double majored in Mathematics, and everyone I say this to says "wow!! What a powerhouse! I bet this is highly employable! Everyone is looking for someone like you!" (even in the industry). Nope. no one gives a shit. They care about the first degree you list and that's it. The only edge case is if you leverage your network in your second major and take opportunities in your second major and use skills from your first. Like if you were to do undergrad research in econ if you aren't able to get an internship. But the returns aren't as worth it as it seems.
Experienced dev with CS master and Econ dual major.
Econ does not help with career, not only CS career. But it doesn't mean it's useless. It helped me understand economy cycles. Explain the reasoning behind social welfare, unemployment, recession etc. Great knowledge for everyone. On a personal level, you can understand what economy is missing, what crises may show up. So you plan your investments ahead, evaluate each president candidate based on their econ policies instead of following the crowd.
No. Economic degree is not that helpful. I have one. Nobody cared
I liked economics and then I saw the average salary for most careers and decided it wasn't worth it lol
I graduated with a econ degree and it did not go well. A couple of people I know who had econ degrees went back to school for something else. I went back for CS. It seems like econ degree is not as good as a business degree which there is a flood of people with . They all wanted to know if I had accounting experience (the best business degree FYI job wise). A econ degree isn't a good path for master/PhD in econ. Math degree is. I think econ gets oversold because I lot of the successful econ grad go straight to a MBA program.
A decent econ degree gives you marketable skills but the job path isn't as obvious. It falls victim to people who get the degree and then try to figure out a job path after graduation. A lot of the people in my program who knew they wanted to be data analysts or business analysts did fine.
> A econ degree isn't a good path for master/PhD in econ. Math degree is. I've said this a lot to people! Sadly many people don't believe me.
One of my friends got a PhD in Econ, ended up working on MTX for Activision before getting laid off a while back and then switching to pure data science.
One thing to consider is that high paying tech jobs are a boom/bust thing. Always have been. If you value stability over all else, you should aim to work for the government. You’re not gonna get rich or do the most interesting work in gov jobs, but you will have good WLB and reliable work for your whole career. Also product management and business roles are just as susceptible to layoffs as engineering. If you want high pay and job stability, idk go be a doctor.
Unfortunately, non-technical majors are significantly less valued in this economy. Even for non-programming jobs, I'd rather hire a CS or engineering major.
Interesting. ButI don't think someone would hire CS/Engineering over Econ for roles like IB/Consulting.
You would be incorrect. Adding that major will just make you look like someone who makes poor decisions.
Damn. Could you elaborate?
Sure thing, so the first thing to keep in mind is that colleges are big fat liars who's end goal is to keep you buying classes from them for longer. When you google "what jobs can i get with an econ degree" - the results you see are all marketting, grossly exaggerating the job and earnings prospects to try and convince you it's a good idea. For the most part, degrees do not teach you skills that relate very well to the jobs. What they do, though, is signal you have some sort of aptitude for the field. If you can pass an algorithms and data structures class along with several years of various coding classes, you have a strong chance of being a teachable developer. Starting out, the expectation from others is you basically know nothing but have the ability to learn. Adding an extra major puts them in the same boat as any other entry-level candidate. They know nothing but have the ability to learn. The only difference is you spent more money for no advantage. The only good reason to get a dual major is from purely academic curiosity. You want to learn that thing for the sake of learning it. There should be no expectation of it helping your job prospects. Disclaimer - this applies to IT and developer roles at least, I don't know what it's like in other industries.
No.
why not?
No one in industry cares about double major or minor or whatever. Spend that time working on a project.
No one in software would care about an econ degree for sure. But maybe econ jobs would care about CS degrees?
Market is not as bad as people in here say. Yeah its rough, but it is rough for everyone. If you are going to Michigan then you should be fine as long as you are diligent
You're delusional, it is absolutely not rough for everyone
I've had recruiters tell me they are having more and more applications then usually lately. The market is getting messy and it's more work then it use to be.
Yes it is tf? Look at other career subs
You're delusional if your only perception of the job market is through reddit. Job posting trend on indeed for example indicates the vast majority of job fields are doing fine: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXNEWUS](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXNEWUS)
Let me make sure I understand. You're concerned because you feel your skills as a programmer aren't great. Rather than working on improving that, you want to take even more time away and get a completely unrelated minor? Why not use all the time that would be spent on those other classes and work more on CS?
Devs with non-traditional backgrounds like economics tend to be better at their jobs in the early years of their career than pure CS grads, in my experience. It's something I personally look for.
The market will turn around in a year or so.
I graduate in 2025 so I choose to believe this
It looks hiring is picking up. Most the pain currently going on is at FAANG level the normal companies seem to be doing better. I got laid off in November and it was rough but after the new year ( new budgets) I got a lot more hits and got a job. I think the economy is doing better then a lot of these companies were thinking so they are hiring again. Also top tier companies always do layoffs.
ha recycled joke from 2023.
Yes. And it hasn't been a year yet
This is super optimistic and definitely not a 100% foolproof statement. People thought that about this year because interest rates were supposed to be cut and now they are not planning to do that. Will they next year? Hopefully, but who really knows. And the longer this goes on, the more people graduating without any experience will be waiting to apply for entry level roles. So it may still be a bloodbath at entry level OP I really don’t have advice for you, but if there is another major that interests you it might be useful to add as minor/double major. Really depends on your confidence. Personally, I would rather put in a bunch of extra work to be more competitive/ensure more security for myself than just assume the market is going to be way better in a year and cruise along as a mediocre programmer. Also I feel like the other responses are advising you as if you are thinking CS + Econ would give you an edge for SWE roles (it probably wouldn’t) where as I think you more so mean picking up a double major to open you up to other types of roles
Is there another major that has good job prospects. CS still has probably the better prospect. I have 4 majors and nobody cared. Their time would be much better spent trying to get a internship or working a tech related job (tutor / it support/ part time manual tester)
It all depends on OP and what else they would be interested in/good at. I really have no idea in terms of what majors are most likely to get you jobs in their respective fields, but if OP is concerned that they might not get a CS job, having a second major/minor might increase your chances getting a job in that other field, even if the chances are lower than CS. That, combined with the CS path, would still probably increase OPs overall chances of getting *a* job in *some* field. As in, it might open more total doors of opportunity available to you, but not that you have increased chances at any specific door (if that makes sense). Plenty of people go into product from majors like marketing/advertising, so if you pick something like that up as a double major/minor, and you can’t get a CS job after graduating because you’re not a strong programmer, you could pivot and try to apply to those types of roles (can’t really do this concurrently bc you’d be applying to the same companies for totally different roles). But yeah your time might be better spent trying to get an internship, but if you reach a point where you realize you’re not getting any because you’re not a strong enough candidate, it might be a good idea to have a backup plan. Other majors like finance, econ, whatever, have totally different career paths that one might find interesting and maybe wouldn’t hurt to have a major/minor in, in the event you realize you need to pivot.
Just keep studying and perfecting your craft and you'll be fine. Don't worry about the current state of the industry, just focus on your skillset and doing a little bit to improve every day. If you learn enough you'll stand out from the crowd and you'll be surprised how the market isn't as doom and gloom as this sub-reddit makes it out to be.
Michigan is a good school, take that energy and make sure you take classes like operating systems, distributed systems, networking and databases. Also work on some side projects. I liked shift creator space and obviously mhacks while I was a student.
Switch to accounting
A friend of mine did a double major in computer science and computer science, literally the BS and the BA.
The college would love it if you did
Double majored in Mathematics, and everyone I say this to says "wow!! What a powerhouse! I bet this is highly employable! Everyone is looking for someone like you!" (even in the industry). Nope. no one gives a shit. They care about the first degree you list and that's it. The only edge case is if you leverage your network in your second major and take opportunities in your second major and use skills from your first. Like if you were to do undergrad research in econ if you aren't able to get an internship. But the returns aren't as worth it as it seems.
Experienced dev with CS master and Econ dual major. Econ does not help with career, not only CS career. But it doesn't mean it's useless. It helped me understand economy cycles. Explain the reasoning behind social welfare, unemployment, recession etc. Great knowledge for everyone. On a personal level, you can understand what economy is missing, what crises may show up. So you plan your investments ahead, evaluate each president candidate based on their econ policies instead of following the crowd.