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Biology/MBB vs. Business

DesolateDesolate
edited March 2010 in General
Eff as much as I thought I decided on doing business, I keep going back to being unsure which route I want to take. The debate I've had is whether to do a BBA or a BSc for months now. And now I just want to kind of make a decision and go for it. Ideally I'd like to go into pharmacy, but I know that may not be possible with how competitive it is to get in and whether or not I can maintain a high GPA while doing sciences.


I just wanted to know if people in either Biology, MBB, or Business had any advice. Why did you choose which one you did? Do you know what sort of job prospects there are for each field?

For science students, wow are the CHEM 121, 122, 126, 181, 182, 186 courses? I am doing CHEM 111 right now, and the labs bore the shit out of me, so hopefully they get more interesting and such as you go on taking more classes. Is it best to take the PHYS 101/102 path for either BISC or MBB? Is Math 154 around the same difficulty as MATH 151, or closer to MATH 157?

Right now my schedule for the summer is BUEC 232, MATH 157, ECON 105 and KIN 110 DE. But I was considering doing a split group of classes, with PHYS 100 and BISC 101 on the science side, and BUS 272 and one other course that fits my schedule on the Biology side. I honestly don't care if I lose my scholarship or not doing either, because I want to do what is going to make me happy, not what will get me the best grades (I'm looking at you FASS courses). Of course I'll try my best to maintain it, but I am not scared of the possibility of losing it.

Thanks in advance, and sorry for yet more indecisive shenanigans on my part.

Comments

  • soggybread
    edited March 2010
    You know that you can do a joint MBB/Business major (http://www.sfu.ca/mbb/Undergraduate/JointMajorBusinessAdmin.html)? That would seem to give you the best of both worlds in my opinion.

    CHEM 121 122 ... 282 286 aren't "easy" courses by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't think they're courses that are unreasonably hard. It of course, depends on the profs you get. I got Steven Holdcroft for 121, and he was a pretty crappy teacher. I got Gary Leach for 122, and he was great. 126 Labs are pretty fair, just do the experiments properly and answer theoretical assignments. I got Garry Mund as the Lab prof. 281, I got Dr. Peter Wilson, decent prof. And right now, I'm taking 282 and 286, with Dr. Nabyl Merbouh and Dr. Uwer Kries respectively, and they're both pretty good.
  • DesolateDesolate
    edited March 2010
    The only problem with that joint major is that it doesn't mention concentrations. Can you still add business concentrations on? And most companies, if I decide to want to focus on the business aspect of things, will just scoff at the fact that it's a BSc. Sure, you joint majored in Business Admin, but they'd likely take the person with the BBA over you.

    I'm still just all confused about what you could do with each degree. I mean, I'd love a biology degree, but I don't plan on spending the rest of my days working in a lab.
  • anonymous1
    edited March 2010
    Maybe you should consider doing a co-op term in one of the areas you're considering. See if you actually like the area and if you could see yourself working in it sometime down the line. Co-op has helped me rule out a couple areas I was considering, since I'm indecisive about which area of chemistry to focus on once I go to grad school.

    Based on the fact that you've maintained your scholarship thus far, I wouldn't say you should rule out pharmacy completely if that's what you're interested in. You shouldn't rule something out just because you might fail. You can apply for pharmacy once you've done the prereqs, before you even get a bachelors. Can't hurt to try if that's what you want to do in my opinion. I honestly think it's easier (at least for my science-oriented mind) to get a better GPA in science courses, because it's not based on your TA's opinion of your writing.
  • DesolateDesolate
    edited March 2010
    anonymous1;63747 said:
    Maybe you should consider doing a co-op term in one of the areas you're considering. See if you actually like the area and if you could see yourself working in it sometime down the line. Co-op has helped me rule out a couple areas I was considering, since I'm indecisive about which area of chemistry to focus on once I go to grad school.

    Based on the fact that you've maintained your scholarship thus far, I wouldn't say you should rule out pharmacy completely if that's what you're interested in. You shouldn't rule something out just because you might fail. You can apply for pharmacy once you've done the prereqs, before you even get a bachelors. Can't hurt to try if that's what you want to do in my opinion. I honestly think it's easier (at least for my science-oriented mind) to get a better GPA in science courses, because it's not based on your TA's opinion of your writing.
    I think I'll have to build up my mind to be science-oriented. I love most sciences, but I've done arts courses for the better part of last year.

    And I hate it when you get bad TAs. I'm in ENGL 105W right now and my TA is awesome, but a brutal marker. I had 95% in English 12, so it was an eye opener. On the draft I got a C+, and I was incredibly disappointed. Then I took their critiques, completely changed it up to meet my standards (which are quite high), and I was proud of it. I got it back the other day and decided to read the comments on my revision first and it said "Great work! The paper has a lot more focus and deals with the topic well." So what do I get? B-. I was so pissed after that, but it really just showed me how subjective marking can be for Arts classes.
  • BSang
    edited March 2010
    Desolate;63749 said:
    I think I'll have to build up my mind to be science-oriented. I love most sciences, but I've done arts courses for the better part of last year.

    And I hate it when you get bad TAs. I'm in ENGL 105W right now and my TA is awesome, but a brutal marker. I had 95% in English 12, so it was an eye opener. On the draft I got a C+, and I was incredibly disappointed. Then I took their critiques, completely changed it up to meet my standards (which are quite high), and I was proud of it. I got it back the other day and decided to read the comments on my revision first and it said "Great work! The paper has a lot more focus and deals with the topic well." So what do I get? B-. I was so pissed after that, but it really just showed me how subjective marking can be for Arts classes.
    I've experienced the same thing. I think most TA's just bump you up a letter grade (ex. from C+ to B-) regardless of how significant or insignificant the improvements are. I had an awesome TA for ENGL 101W, for which I got an A, and a TA that just didn't like me for ENGL 105W, where I got a B-. For most TA's, I think that first impressions are everything. It's better to do shitty work later, rather than earlier. At least then, the TA will know you just didn't try, rather than thinking you're retarded.

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