re: Value of an LSU Business/Econ Degree?

Since I'm anonymous here I'm going to go ahead and say that that guy looks like a complete goof ball. The two books I picked up are the first two on this page. They're much shorter than I was anticipating, I can probably finish them in a night. I have the other two sitting in my massive amazon queue.

Econ used to be a lot more popular before the BBA trend took off in the 80's. It's still a solid, respected degree that you can apply to about any business field and great if you plan on an MBA or if you're not certain what you want to do after college.

The more specialized degrees have become so popular you get finance majors wanting to hire only finance majors, etc. Econ is like the "liberal arts" of the business world now... although a bit more rigorous obviously. Many politicians and more macro-focused titles have gone the Econ route in lieu of law school since it's more well-rounded than acct. or finance and you don't have to go to school for 6 years and pass all the exams like law.

Adam Smith's Invisible Hand Is Science...and it will smack you

Yeah.. I will agree that the interplay of various factors on the Macro level is more art than science. But I wouldn't go so far as to say it is more like a religion; there are at least some tangibles. Is Econ as concrete as Finance? No? But I think the nature of Econ has so many factors that have to be taken into account that it may seem like hocus pocus, religion, etc. For instance, I took a 4000+ Econ at LSU that covered the economics of China. I did research on the major financial centers of china and how the immigration from rural farming areas played into it and a variable that needed to be taken into account was rainfall during a 3 month period...it was so obscure, but that's the type of thing that Economists have to account for (I am not saying that they always do it though)

I likened it to religion because people have pretty zealot-like beliefs, and it is highly influenced by who taught you/where you went to school. It's not useless or anything, for reasons like the ones you just stated, but when the people that are supposed to be the experts have such divergent opinions on pretty much everything, its hard not to take a lot of it (again, the more advanced stuff, not supply/demand or elasticity) with a grain of salt.

The value of a West Point degree is clearly not in the school it's in the leadership & hard work of being an Army officer.

The value of said degree & experience is definitely offset by being shot at for 6 years & hopefully not being fricked in the head because of it.