When you think of majoring in a business field, you may be envisioning future leadership in a key industry or kick-starting your own enterprise as an entrepreneur. You may see yourself influencing business decisions by searching for trends through big data or setting new standards through insightful personnel management You might aim to improve the way local or national government works by investigating and enacting public policy. Perhaps you will expand your reach by engaging in international relations or by joining a think tank.

Cornell prepares you for these careers through two approaches to studying business and the economy. The first approach goes wide. In both the broad economics and business major (ECB) and in the business management track (BMM), students uncover the logic of markets and see their applications across a wide range of business settings. ECB students discover how markets work. When do markets fail? What are the triggers that jolt the global economy and the balance sheets of individual businesses? BMM students explore the management of people, information, and financial assets.

The second approach offers specialized paths to career readiness. Cornell’s Finance, Business Analytics, Personnel Management, and Actuarial Science tracks prepare students for functional roles within organizations, both for-profit and non-profit. You will learn how to develop dashboards of key performance indicators, manage financial risk, and evaluate business strategies. You won’t do this alone, but in close collaboration with other students, faculty and staff, and business partners. Our distinctive business and management offerings prepare you for a professional future.

If you want a broad approach to understanding the economy and the private sector, consider pursuing:

If you want a focused, pre-professional approach in high-impact fields of business, consider pursuing: 

  • Business major: finance track
  • Business major: business analytics track
  • Business major: actuarial science track
  • Management major: personnel management track

Individualized majors

If you have an even more targeted career goal, create an individualized major that fine tunes your studies to the exact industry you’re interested in within the economics and business department tracks or with other majors across the college.

Recent students have created the following majors:

  • Financial analytics = business finance + business analytics
  • Sports management = business management + kinesiology
  • International business = business management + international relations

Immersive study in business environments

One Course At A Time gives you the flexibility to try several courses and figure out what really sparks your business imagination. The further you progress in your courses you will have the opportunity to experience aspects of economics and business that are outside the reach of most undergraduates:

  • Off-campus courses allow you to meet the people, visit the places, and directly observe the processes being studied
  • Internships can be scheduled any Block in your course of study without affecting your coursework
  • Business leaders, best-selling authors, and scholars frequently join our classrooms
  • Several business courses focus on real-world business cases

Learn more about how the Block plan benefits our students in Professor Santhi Hejeebu’s essay “The Business of One Course At A Time.”

Careers & graduate study

Many of our alumni have moved directly into careers in business and government. Some have started their own firms. Others have found the economics and business major to be ideal preparation for graduate studies in business or law. And we regularly place students in top-rated Ph.D. programs in economics.

Business major Management major Economics & business major