Why am I considering Management?
There are any number of reasons. I was originally planning on majoring in Computer Engineering, but, after auditing only two hours of classes I knew it wasn't for me.
Sitting in front of a computer writing code sounded boring, so I started looking into other career options. That got me thinking. I realized I would rather make the decisions for the engineers rather than actually being one. I started reading USA Today's "Money" section, the New York Times Business section, and the Wall Street Journal. At some point along the way I realized that I wanted to go into business. Then I took some accounting classes, which I didn't much care for. That just left Management. I think it turned out for the best because I would like to start a company sometime in the future and this degree will give me a solid foundation in how to manage people.
Comments
Posted by: Grayden MacLennan
Posted on: September 29, 2005 12:00 AM
I started as an engineer, then flipped over to computer science when I found that engineering was not quite what I had anticipated. I did that until sophomore year and then got completely overwhelmed. My junior year I switched into Management because I had discovered the Information Systems department at Weatherhead. I was in love!
Honestly, a Management degree is not going to prepare you very well for managing people at the end of your undergraduate career. Even at the end of an MBA, you can walk out the door and say "great, wtf do I do now?". The key is experience in the real world.
If you want to be making decisions for engineers, you may want to go back and dabble in the engineering realm a bit more. Or take some technical classes from the MIDS department. If you have no idea what engineers do or the pressures they face, you won't be able to effectively understand how they work and how to best utilize them.
Changing gears for a moment... You may want to think about your approach to college. Are you pursuing a major because it will get you a good job or because you love it? You go to college to get an education, not to get a job, so study things that really jump out at you as being cool even if they seem off the wall and completely unrelated to your career goals. I know a network admin who was a religion major. I know another network admin who was a theater major. I know engineers who have gone into business. The list of weird and unexpected crossovers goes on.
Looking back at my undergrad years, some of the classes I took really surprised me in how useful they were despite being completely unrelated to anything I would ever touch again. Is art history EVER going to be a part of my career? Nope, but being able to have a conversation with an artist and know a little bit about what he's talking about it quite rewarding. Photography was an area that held some fascination for me, and I ended up minoring in it.
In any case, I've gotten a bit off track. If you want to go into management, do it because you love the idea of learning how companies work. If you want to be the boss, there are any number of ways to get there that don't involve a management degree.
Oh, and going back to the accounting stuff... yeah financial accounting is a majorly boring topic, and it's awful when you are first learning it. It's one of those subjects that makes absolutely no sense until one day it'll just suddenly CLICK and you'll realize "Whoa! That's how it works!". It order to fully grasp accounting, you MUST sit down and ready every word about T-Tables. Realize that "debit" and "credit" don't mean what you think they mean. They really just mean "left" and "right" and not "take money" or "give money". They really should invent different words and not use terminology that totally contradicts everything that's been drilled into our heads by credit cards and debit cards. Managerial accounting is a bit more fun because it involves more decision-making type stuff. Operations Management is a cool area. If you're hardcore about math, Operations Research is on par with engineering in the crazy stuff they do. Anyways I'm rambling now so I'm gonna shut up.