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Calculusaurus · 12-03-2006, 01:14 PM

Be careful about choosing economics for the purpose of "providing you with knowledge to get a good career or start up a business."

Having an economics or business degree does not automatically place you in any better position to start your own business than any other course of study would.

Starting your own business involves risk-taking, ingenuity, creativity... An economics degree won't give you these things.

At my school, physics majors get into better business grad school programs than the economics majors do. Not as many apply, but physics will make you think, it will give you a new way of looking at the world and requires an incredible cognitive force to tread through. I'm basically committing public suicide by saying this, but economics is often a load of BS. Arbritrary, meaningless esoteric knowledge might make you sound like a well-toned intellectual in your 400-level ECON course, but does little in making you really THINK.

The universe knows this, and it won't grant you any special privelages in your business path in life.

It very much reminds me of a story from Richard Feynman. He was a physicist his entire life, but one year he decided to take a detour in biology. He once gave a talk to a class and in the introduction of the talk, he overviewed the anatomy of the cat, giving strange names for different parts of the anatomy--you know, gotta overview a little language and semantics so that the audience knows what you're referring to throughout the talk. Anyway, the audience basically said, "what are you doing? We know all this terminology already, and actually have it memorized. This is some of the stuff we've been learning for the past 4 years..."

What took a group of bio majors 4 years to eventually memorize took Feynman 5 minutes to look up in a book. Feynman actually went on to make a few interesting discoveries. He ended his shortlived bio career by giving a talk to the bio dept of Harvard or something. I forget the details.

A background in physics did not deter him from succeeding in biology. Just as a background in ____ will not deter you from starting a successful business. But then again, Feynman was a genius and we're not.

Bottom line: major in something you are passionate about, be it music, philosophy, or even econ. If you don't know your academic passion yet, then don't force yourself to decide immediately. Try a liberal arts college, perhaps, where you'll have the freedom to "shop around," instead of having to sign your soul over to a department freshman year.

12-03-2006, 01:14 PM	#25 (permalink)
Calculusaurus Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 379	Be careful about choosing economics for the purpose of "providing you with knowledge to get a good career or start up a business." Having an economics or business degree does not automatically place you in any better position to start your own business than any other course of study would. Starting your own business involves risk-taking, ingenuity, creativity... An economics degree won't give you these things. At my school, physics majors get into better business grad school programs than the economics majors do. Not as many apply, but physics will make you think, it will give you a new way of looking at the world and requires an incredible cognitive force to tread through. I'm basically committing public suicide by saying this, but economics is often a load of BS. Arbritrary, meaningless esoteric knowledge might make you sound like a well-toned intellectual in your 400-level ECON course, but does little in making you really THINK. The universe knows this, and it won't grant you any special privelages in your business path in life. It very much reminds me of a story from Richard Feynman. He was a physicist his entire life, but one year he decided to take a detour in biology. He once gave a talk to a class and in the introduction of the talk, he overviewed the anatomy of the cat, giving strange names for different parts of the anatomy--you know, gotta overview a little language and semantics so that the audience knows what you're referring to throughout the talk. Anyway, the audience basically said, "what are you doing? We know all this terminology already, and actually have it memorized. This is some of the stuff we've been learning for the past 4 years..." What took a group of bio majors 4 years to eventually memorize took Feynman 5 minutes to look up in a book. Feynman actually went on to make a few interesting discoveries. He ended his shortlived bio career by giving a talk to the bio dept of Harvard or something. I forget the details. A background in physics did not deter him from succeeding in biology. Just as a background in ____ will not deter you from starting a successful business. But then again, Feynman was a genius and we're not. Bottom line: major in something you are passionate about, be it music, philosophy, or even econ. If you don't know your academic passion yet, then don't force yourself to decide immediately. Try a liberal arts college, perhaps, where you'll have the freedom to "shop around," instead of having to sign your soul over to a department freshman year. __________________ Sleep Last edited by Calculusaurus; 12-03-2006 at 01:27 PM.