If you have an interest in both engineering and business, you might be wondering which would make for the better major. This post will show you advantages and disadvantages of each of them and help you to decide which would be better for you.
At a glance:
| | Business Administration | Engineering |
| Payscale reported average pay | $66,127 | $85,100 |
| Ease of finding a job | Moderate | Good |
| Types of jobs you can qualify for | Project Manager Marketing manager Account manager Operations manager Financial analyst | Software engineer Mechanical engineer Civil engineer Project engineer Structural engineer Electrical engineer Industrial engineer Chemical engineer |
| Difficulty of the major | Easy/Moderate | Hard |
| Key things to note | A general degree. This can make it difficult to qualify for specialized jobs that pay better. Can improve your job prospects by double majoring with something more specialized such as finance or computer science. Can make for a good minor. | One of the best paying bachelor’s degrees. Can give good job prospects with just a bachelor’s degree. Good job satisfaction. The jobs you will qualify for will depend a lot on the specific type of engineering degree you choose. |
Source for engineering salary and jobs
There are many things to consider when deciding between the two degrees. Also, there are other things to consider if you do decide to major in either of them such as what classes you should take.
Details about a degree in business administration
Below are some details about a degree in business administration.
Pay
According to Payscale, the average salary of a person with a degree in business administration is $66,127. However, you can expect entry-level positions to pay less than that. According to Payscale, an entry-level business administrator can expect to make $48,560.
Whereas, engineering majors are reported as earning $85,100 on average. This is likely to be a combination of good starting pay for entry-level positions, lots of available jobs that are directly related to engineering and good career progression.
Jobs
A business administration major will have you taking classes in a range of disciplines including: business, finance, accounting, and economics. As a result, a business degree is a somewhat general degree that is not specialized on a particular type of job. This means that the degree can qualify you for a large amount of jobs. However, you will often be less competitive than people who have degrees related to that specific job.
While it can be difficult to compete with people who have degrees related to specific job roles, you can improve your job prospects by getting internships, completing projects and learning skills related to the specific job that you are interested in.
Jobs that you can qualify for with a bachelor’s degree in business administration can include:
- Project Manager
- Marketing manager
- Account manager
- Operations manager
- Financial analyst
Difficulty
Overall, a business administration degree will usually be relatively easy when compared with alternative degrees such as finance, economics and accounting. The reason for this is that, being a general degree, you will not be taking many specialized classes that tend to be more difficult that other majors would include in their junior and senior years.
When compared with an engineering major, you can expect a business degree to be much easier.
Classes you can expect to study
In a business administration degree, you can expect to take the following classes:
- Marketing
- Accounting
- Management
- Economics
- Finance
- Business law
- Business ethics
- Business principles
You can also expect to have the option to take other business classes as your degree requirement and the ability to take any classes in your electives. It would help to consider what job you are most interested in and to choose your electives accordingly.
Alternative degrees
If you are interested in a business administration degree, there are some alternatives that you might also want to consider such as:
- Finance
- Economics
- Accounting
- Marketing
Things to consider
As mentioned above, a degree in business administration can be quite general which can make it difficult to qualify for specific jobs. With that being the case, it would likely help a lot to minor in another field that is more specialized such as finance or computer science. A double major would also be an option if you are willing and able to put in the extra time. Alternatively, you could major in the more applied field and minor in business administration instead.
Regardless, you will be able to drastically improve your job prospects if you learn skills related to the job you are interested in, take classes related to the job you are interested in, complete related projects, and get internships in that field.
Details about a degree in engineering
Below are details about a degree in engineering.
It can pay well
According to Payscale, the average salary for someone with a bachelor’s degree in engineering is $85,100. This puts engineering among the highest paying degrees available.
Engineering is also a major that will give you good job prospects with just a bachelor’s degree. This is because engineering degrees tend to be applied to specific job roles meaning that you should be reasonably well prepared for certain jobs without needing too much extra training. It is also common for people with engineering degrees to find work in other mathematical fields such as data analytics and data science.
However, a lot of the better jobs will require a master’s degree and a master’s degree can help with career progression. Getting one will also improve your long-term pay prospects. However, this can also be said for most majors.
Something to consider is that the average salary will vary depending on the specific field that you are intending to enter. You can look here to see what the median and average pay is for each of the different types of engineering degrees.
Also, the job progression and working hours will depend a lot on the specific field you want to enter.
Before choosing an engineering degree, it would help a lot to do lots of research on the specific type of engineering degree that you are interested in and to make sure that it has good job prospects. It would also help to make sure that it is something that you would be interested in doing.
Job prospects are projected to improve
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics it is expected that there will be a total of 139,300 new jobs by 2026 when compared to 2016. You can look here to see how each of the different types of engineering jobs are projected to improve.
Many people with engineering degrees go down the software engineering route. These jobs tend to pay well and be less demanding unless there are deadlines coming up.
With that being the case, picking up a minor in computer science will help to broaden your job prospects significantly. At the very least, it would help to make sure to take computer science algorithms and data structures since that is what gets tested in software engineering interviews.
The types of jobs you can expect to qualify for will depend a lot on the type of engineering degree you choose and the electives you choose.
But you can expect to qualify for jobs such as:
- Mechanical engineer
- Civil engineer
- Project engineer
- Structural engineer
- Electrical engineer
- Industrial engineer
- Chemical engineer
If you also take computer science classes you could also qualify for software engineering roles. You might also qualify for roles in data science, machine learning and data analysis if you learn programming (in Python), take computer science electives and also complete projects related to machine learning and data science.
It is also recommended to try to get summer internships, while in the major, since it will help you a lot when searching for a job.
It can be difficult to get a high GPA
Engineering majors are, usually, majors with a high dropout rate. There are many possible reasons for this but one main reason is that an engineering major is more challenging than people would expect.
Engineering makes use of lots of mathematics. In engineering, you will need to learn, single and multivariable calculus, linear algebra, discrete math and differential equations as well as some physics. These can be difficult classes that will require a lot of time spent studying. Many students are not willing to put the necessary amount of time into studying for these classes so they end up not doing very well in them.
Another thing to consider is your level of interest in the subject. If you are interested in engineering, you will likely have an easier time motivating yourself to continue studying when you are struggling.
Engineering degrees will often require more credits
Another reason that people have a hard time doing well in engineering is that it will often require more credits to graduate than some of the other majors.
This means that you will likely have to take more classes in each semester as an engineering major and you will have to spend more time studying.
Alternative degrees
There are a number of alternatives if you are thinking of getting an engineering degree.
The alternatives can include:
- Computer science
- Mathematics
- Statistics
- Computer engineering
- Physics
Things to consider
Since the different engineering degrees will be more applied to specific job roles and can qualify you for a range of jobs, they should give you good job prospects.
However, it can still be difficult when job searching especially right after graduation so it could help a lot to improve your job opportunities by also taking classes from another well-paying discipline such as computer science and to get internships.
Bottom line
As mentioned above, an engineering degree should qualify you for many jobs that pay well and have high levels of job satisfaction. With that being the case, an engineering degree is one of the best degrees to get in terms of job opportunities and satisfaction.
While computer science is one of the best degrees to get right now, it might still be the case that it might not be for you. It is a degree that involves a lot of mathematics including calculus, differential equations and linear algebra. If you are not great at math right now, it does not mean that you should not major in engineering since it is possible to improve your ability in math using websites such as khanacademy.org.
A business administration degree can also qualify you for a number of different jobs but they will not be as well-paying as most engineering jobs at the entry-level. If you do decide to get a business administration degree, it would help a lot to make sure to take classes related to the job that you are most interested in, to learn skills related to that job, to complete related projects and to get internships during the summer. I would also strongly recommend that you consider at least getting a minor in something such as finance or computer science since it will improve your job prospects considerably.
