I see posts all the time about landing a finance job, working in finance, etc.

As someone from an accounting background, I want to tell you why I think this fixation on finance is bullshit.

  1. None of these people are working on Wall Street. Working on Wall St. basically requires a top 20 B-school degree and/or some great connections. Just because you got an entry level IB job at Goldman Sachs in Kansas City doesn't make you some investing shark.

  2. Finance is client based. Finance systems are essentially run by computers. You are not going to be coming up with brilliant investment strategies as a first year analyst. You're not going to be on the floor yelling out trades. More likely, you're going to be cold calling distant relatives to see if they want to buy life insurance annuities.

  3. Many of the people that work in finance have no actual business or investing skills. They are simply good at schmoozing clients, and view money as the only important thing. Personally, I'd rather know as much about real business as I can, not just how to get more commissions out of a client.

It should be important to find a career that is fulfilling to you. If you go to college and major in finance, I can certifiably tell you that you're getting a subpar education. Even if you want to work in finance, major in accounting or economics. Finance is a shitty, overblown major at most business schools, and you will be graduating with little knowledge.

I know this may be an unpopular opinion, but I find most of the rhetoric around people who want to work in finance rather blind and ignorant. No, it's not likely you're going to be working on Wall Street. What is likely is that you'll be handling a bunch of people's money for a nominal fee that you did very little actual work to get. More than likely, you didn't even make the major investment decisions.

EDIT: I know that accounting is not generally considered to be lucrative or prestigious, but in my opinion it's unequivocally the best business major. A former classmate of mine did accounting over finance, and directly after school he went to his Father's hedge fund in NYC. His father told him that accounting was more useful than finance. I've known accountants who get some work experience and go back to get a good MBA, an end up in investing anyway. It's the language of business, and having taken a significant amount of both finance and accounting courses, I believe that finance is smaller and scope and is mainly enveloped by the science of accounting.

Economics is good if you are at a GREAT school or want to do law. If not, I'd say accounting and data analytics are your best bets for business major. Of course you cannot go wrong with computer science.

I say that college should be used to pursue something that interests and challenges you (ie Physics or Philosophy), or gives you a useful skill upon graduating (ie Accounting or Data Analysis). Lots of majors do that, and I don't believe that finance is one of them. I also don't believe the finance career path is especially prestigious or rewarding, unless you're in a good location.