A reader asked this question:
I started reading your blog years ago with my mother – I was just a kid. Fast forward to now and I am 1 year away from a business degree which was absolutely influenced by you and your start-ups.
However, I have always found it interesting that you opted to graduate with a political science degree and throughout my college career I kept it in the back of my head. I had always used it to remind myself that what I am learning in school is not necessarily going to make me successful – I have to do that on my own.
I am finally writing to you about this because I just have to know why. I have spent many sleepless nights in the past few weeks deciding what to do with my final year of school. My best friend and I are one summer away from having our own website and I am endlessly battling with myself between majoring in marketing or finance.
As far as careers go, I am much more interested in a marketing career, but with my research I find time and time again that for an entrepreneur, or really anyone attempting to become financially independent, that finance is essential knowledge. I would like your advice on the matter because I know you have developed your own projects without majoring in either of these subjects.
I would like to know your stance on a situation like this and any advice would be much appreciated.
From all the experience I’ve had with “successful” people is that the educational background wasn’t necessarily the reason for the success, but definitely helped in it’s own unique way.
We can take a familiar example like Adam McFarland who graduated with an engineering and programming background, but has ended up being part of a very successful car oriented ecommerce site. Did his engineering and programming education itself make this happen? No….but it sure helped when he created and then re-vamped the site using his coding background.
So here’s what turned me off business school:
First and foremost I just didn’t get it.
“BUSINESS”
What does that mean?
Isn’t everything technically business?
Dig a little deeper and it breaks down into things like marketing, finance or accounting. None of those seemed particularly interesting to me at the time.
Second, I took a look at what the graduates did after school and where they went to work. It just didn’t seem exciting to me (keep in mind that’s simply my opinion). Our business school at The University of Texas had a very high out-of-college job rate, but that didn’t interest me as I was more into starting a company.
Third, I was originally a computer science student (but eventually couldn’t cut it…apparently a huge percentage of computer science students are WAY better than I am at coding). I was interested in building a talent which I could build something with….something that would give me an advantage over others. I was already into computers so it seemed a natural fit. If I could do it all over again, I would have worked harder towards getting a computer science or engineering degree. That stuff takes years of education….business lessons can often be picked up in a few good books.
Perhaps this might work well for you:
- Piece of paper with “Marketing” vs. “Finance”
- Write down the names of the associated classes you must take for each major
- Which one appeals to you more?
If reading financial statements and learning the intricacies of banking/accounting are interesting to you, then finance might be better. And if whatever the hell it is they teach in marketing is more interesting to you…..well you get the point.