Choosing a specialization to learn over the course of higher education is always so anxiety-causing. Well, how can it not be intimidating? After all, from your perspective as a school graduate, you are basically deciding your career path for the rest of your life, so, having some worries is completely fine.
Of course, you will be able to change your major whenever you want if you end up not liking it, but as you are applying – everything seems so final.
Our society’s main principles lie within capitalism, so private businesses play a big part in our everyday life even if we sometimes forget about their ever-present influence. Deciding upon a major in business if absolutely great, but there are so many business-related degrees that it is very hard to choose one option over the other without thoroughly researching how businesses operate.
To help you with your choice, we compiled the most common business-related majors out there. We will look at what each particular degree focuses on studying and the most important courses you will have in each degree. You will definitely be able to pick something out from the list that will suit specifically you!
Marketing & Advertisement
Doing a major in this subfield is all about learning as much as possible about the customer base rather than focusing that much on the business itself. Because all for-profit businesses offer some kinds of service, marketing concentrates on spreading the business’ messages throughout the existing and potential client bases in order to sell services.
This specialization requires a combination of critical and lateral thinking – strong factual analysis of company metrics has to be induced with your creativity. Only if you can efficiently combine the two, you will be an advertising professional. The main classes in this major are Consumer Mindset, Online Advertisement and Social Networks, and Promotion Analytics.
Operational Management
If you are not that familiar with the field of business, then Operational Management may sound to you like a very obscure and not well-defined name. However, in actuality, the name could not be more precise – it refers to the process where any business takes the raw resources and transforms them into something of value to the customer.
This subfield has a lot to do with math and statistical analysis. Additionally, if establishing inner-company processes sounds very interesting to you, then you will have to develop your organizational and problem-solving skills. The main courses in the major include Logistics, Data-based Decision Making, Profit, and Loss Management.
Accountancy
This is quite a popular term, so most people are familiar with what it means. This subfield dedicates itself exclusively to the question of managing business finances. Accountants keep track of companies’ financial books, creating relevant reports on spending and business revenue.
Throughout your education, you will need to write tons of academic papers, and the “I do not have the time to write my paper” will be a constant issue for you.
To become an accountant, you will also have to complete official State certification, so that more employment opportunities would be open to you. Because Accountancy is such a vast subject, you will have to study broader subjects, including Finance Reports, Taxation of Businesses, Inner-company Audits, Costs Accountancy, and Risk Management.
Informational Systems
The evolution of computer technologies over the past 50 years has changed our public lives completely. Our society as a whole gladly accepted this digital change while businesses have adapted computers to improve both the inner operations and cooperation with other businesses.
Informational systems can be used for the most varied purposes you can think of automating the statistical analysis, improving the work of some departments, amending communication and enabling decision making, creating a digital workplace, etc.
Of course, to perform such work, you will need to be (or become through study) a technical whizz. You will have to learn a lot of information about computer systems and programming, as well as delve into business theory and its common topics.
The main courses in this major are Computer Systems Design, Enterprise-level Software, Business Metrics Statistical Analysis, Establishing Networks, and Service Layers. There is also even greater potential if you have a graduate degree like a Master’s degree in IT.
Enterprise Metrics Analysis/Statistics
If doing math feels like a lot of fun and engagement to you, then maybe you should consider devoting yourself to Statistical Analytics. This subfield focuses on the methods of gathering relevant data, ways to process it and receive valuable output, and, of course, visualizing data to enable the decision making of business leaders.
Some knowledge of computer programming will be required for this job too because computers can rather easily and quickly do tedious calculations that humans would spend too much time over. Your job will be mainly in developing analytical algorithms for the business to improve its metrics. The main courses for this major are company metrics, data collection, statistics-based prediction, and quantitative assessment.
Economics
This subfield can be considered meta-business. Why so? Because it deals with how businesses interact with each other, creating this big interconnected web of continuous money-service exchange system.
By choosing this major, you will get a deep look into how whole markets, enterprises, and clients engage in a global and molecular level.
As you graduate from this program, you will have comprehensive knowledge of how the price tags are initially defined, what influences them later on, how customers create demand and big concepts like inflation and unemployment rates. The main courses for this major encompass Economy of Labor and Game Theory (do not be surprised by the course’s name, it has much more to do with human decision making than anything else).
Human Resource
No business can exist without any workers, and these workers, of course, need management. So, as long as businesses will exist, specialists within this subfield will always be needed. HR officers and managers do a very important job of searching up talent, negotiating job contracts, controlling the staff training, and managing any conflicts between employees.
To be an HR specialist, you will have to have highly developed communication skills, which is a necessity for the subfield. The main courses for the major are Staff Organization, Negotiation, Workforce Administration, and Resolving Workplace Conflicts.
Take Your Time
Deciding upon which higher education program to enroll in is a pretty big decision, so definitely do not rush it. Research each of the specializations a bit more and try to imagine yourself performing the respective job tasks. If you find a role that you feel like it is “the one,” then do not hesitate to apply!
