Is the Economics degree becoming "useless" for IB/AM?

username1208193

Hey guys. To all of you interested in the field of Economics and/or Investment Banking/Asset Management, or not, I wanted to get your opinions on this. Do you feel a generic Economics degree is becoming less useful when it comes to applying for IB/AM? Had an interesting discussion with a few of my peers about how IB/AM institutions are looking around for people with Mathematics and CompSci degrees now, and perhaps taking Economics say, without Maths or something finance-related may prove to be less useful for landing a career in these highly competitive areas. This is just my general opinion.

Any thoughts/opinions are welcome.

Reply 1

biglad2k16

Yes, it's better to do maths or computing because the jobs that will be prominent in banking in the future will require these sorts of degrees.

Reply 2

STEMisSuperior.

Economics as a degree is great for banking because it provides the sort of analytical thinking that banks are looking for. It's never been an advantage for most IB/AM roles. And there's always been a general correlation between wannabe bankers and economics undergrad students.

Maths and Compsci are by all means great degrees but it's hard to suggest that it gives an advantage. And given that there's no degree subject requirements for these jobs I dont think that's something you can say for sure. Perhaps you've attempted some reverse psychology and put yourself in the mind of an employer but I really dont see how only now they'd be seeking out for maths and compsci grads

Reply 3

username738914

Original post by SubZero~

your title doesn't really make sense, IBD/AM/ER/Sales are all very much anogstic to what degree you have. it is only in some (increasingly more over the next few years) trading/strategy/research desks and prop trading firms where someone with an engineering, maths, compsci, etc degree would be at a bit of an advantage because of their knowledge/skills.

economics has always been a generic, academic degree with a decent (but not as intense as eng/maths) numerical aspect. how it became associated with banking, idk. it's certainly not useless (neither is any other general academic degree) considering that you develop transferable skills and most employers for most roles couldn't care less about degree title nowadays.

in short yes, there will certainly be an increase in demand for maths/CS/eng grads as some aspects of banking/investment management become digitalised but I wouldn't say it's useless.

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Reply 4

p68795885

knowledge of accounting is useful

Reply 5

Athematica

http://wallstreetplayboys.com/the-future-of-wall-street/

Read this the other week. Not sure what to think of it. The source is hardly 'legitimate' but they seem to know what they are talking about.

Reply 6

username3011076

Original post by Athematica

http://wallstreetplayboys.com/the-future-of-wall-street/

Read this the other week. Not sure what to think of it. The source is hardly 'legitimate' but they seem to know what they are talking about.

WallStreetOasis is a much better site than Wallstreetplayboys. The latter is filled with a lot of meaningless stuff written by god knows who, while the former is fully legitimate.

Reply 7

Athematica

Original post by Wienerwald

WallStreetOasis is a much better site than Wallstreetplayboys. The latter is filled with a lot of meaningless stuff written by god knows who, while the former is fully legitimate.

What purpose does your comment serve?

Is there an article such as this on WSO?

Reply 8

username3011076

Original post by Athematica

What purpose does your comment serve?

Is there an article such as this on WSO?

I was simply advising against reading articles on Wallstreetplayboys.

Yes, there are many. It does take some time to find them, though.

Reply 9

Athematica

Original post by Wienerwald

I was simply advising against reading articles on Wallstreetplayboys.

Noted.

Reply 10

username738914

Original post by Wienerwald

WallStreetOasis is a much better site than Wallstreetplayboys. The latter is filled with a lot of meaningless stuff written by god knows who, while the former is fully legitimate.

they're both "legitimate" sites. The people who run the WSP blog are actual professionals on wall street in various FO roles; sure, the style of writing is a bit blazé but the content is legit.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 11

Commercial Paper

Original post by SubZero~

An Economics degree has always been useless for IB/AM, completely abstract. Useless in terms of relevance - obviously has applications in terms of analytical skills etc.

If you're talented at it, go for Computer Science & Mathematics and then do an MSc in Finance if you can't land anything out of undergrad.

Even though your degree technically doesn't matter for banking, Computer Science & Mathematics is desirable for more technical roles and outside of banking, it opens more doors.

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(edited 7 years ago)