The Default Major - Skating Through B-School

nytimes.com

12 points·timr··3 comments

The higher-education system is in trouble the way I see it. I was a business major (Management) and spent ~5 hours each week on average (5 courses/semester) and graduated with decent grades.

I've since enrolled in graduate CS program. Taking 1-2 classes, I spend 10-20 hours each week outside of class. The contrast between CS and Business courses is ridiculous. I feel that my time as an undergrad was almost worthless.

I'm unsure of why the Business degree was so "easy", but my inclination is that colleges want to keep their enrollment high ($$$) so they try to keep less-than-stellar student's enrolled by watering down the requirements.

I'd be interested to learn whether standardized tests should be implemented for colleges/universities to ensure that student's are getting an education worth the price of enrollment.

Or maybe most students in Business don't really expect to do any real work when they get out. The persistent image presented of the successful businessperson is one who shoots from the hip and doesn't stop to take names, because they're just so damn good they can rule the world without actually trying. They don't need no stinkin education, that's for suckers and the nerds who will all be reporting to them in a few years anyway.

I have no doubt that there are all sorts of interesting things to study in business, but given how the rewards currently work in the business world, the only thing the matters is who you know and how much money you can squeeze from a company by killing all of their actual innovation.

single page: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/education/edlife/edl-17bus...

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