Marketing vs Finance

[lethal]

Hello all, I am currently deciding upon my future career but not sure what area to do my degree in because I have a strong interest and passion for both. Please note I am currently doing my A-levels and I am 17.

So why do I want to do marketing
I always have seen my self as someone who tries to promote and advertise role in the future, I feel I am extremely creative, and always thinking out of the box.

So why finance?
From a very young age going into finance was my ambition, I know people may call me sad but I log all my bank statements into a spreadsheet and write next to it why I took it out and what I spent it on. I also log how much I am going to save from my income (to put towards my car and other uni fees). I also have met a couple of successful accountants, as well as my uncle is a corporate director at a very large company.

Is it it possible to study marketing and go into finance, or study finace and go into marketing?

LETHAL

Any help will be greatly appreciated

 

[Cornish Steve]

Do you have to decide right now? Can you not take a business course at university and specialise in marketing or finance in the second half of the degree?

One of the keys for marketing is to excel in communication: written, verbal, and within a team. I'd say this is a more important quality than anything else. There's often no right answer, just several alternative answers.

For finance, there is usually a definite right answer, so precision, attention to detail, and the ability to work methodically is important.

Your personality may be the key here. While I am very good with numbers, I could never work in finance because I crave variety and a creative environment. On the other hand, if you're someone for whom black is black and white is white (or maybe it should be red is red!), you may be more suited to finance. (Of course, these are generalisations, and I'm sure the accountants will throw in their two-penneth.)

Looking back, I regret the fact that I was expected to choose a career before I was really ready to do so. Again, let me repeat my initial advice: If you can defer the decision until you've have the chance to savour both topics in more detail, do so.

 

[Gillie]

For finance, there is usually a definite right answer, so precision, attention to detail, and the ability to work methodically is important.

Steve, get four Accountants in a room, give them all the same set of accounts, and each of them will come out with a slightly different answer, as its all in the interpretation of them, so not quite the definitive subject you think.

To the Op, I take it then you have been or are studying Accountancy perhaps as well as Business Studies in your A levels? If so, have you sat down with your tutors and asked them about the best possible direction for you to take? And even if you are not doing them for A levels, it would be worth a chat with a professional advisor to see which is the best way forward so that you are not cutting off one particular avenue at this moment in time.

 

[Alice3537]

Looking at the way you describe your reasons for each of these career paths, lethal, it kind of seems to me that you have more of a passion for finance?

 

[lethal]

yeah I do have a passion finance, but then again I feel I have a passion for advertising and other aspects of marketing for instance, part of my product design course involved creating A product and I created a promotional item which a university picked up on and wanted to take it to market! Which is more competitive, and on average (FROM your own experience) would be the salary for something like a marketing consultant (as that's what I would like to do if I do marketing) or becoming an accountant?

 

[Alice3537]

lethal,

Have you also researched other careers in finance - Treasury? Investment Banker? Actuarial (sp?!) work? just as a few examples. If you haven't considered any of the above, it may be useful to do so because these are very different careers but still within the 'sphere' of finance.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Is it it possible to study marketing and go into finance, or study finace and go into marketing?

You can study anything at Uni and go into marketing ... except marketing ... I can't think of a top marketer that ever sat a marketing exam.

The path of finance to marketing seems reasonable enough to me. I used to be a numbers guy and my first marketing job was as a statistician.

Steve

 

[Alice3537]

You can study anything at Uni and go into marketing ... except marketing ... I can't think of a top marketer that ever sat a marketing exam.

Steve

What happens to them? The people who study marketing, I mean!

 

[directmarketingadvice]

What happens to them? The people who study marketing, I mean!

Over the last 5 years, I've met a number of university students who are studying marketing and I don't know what's going on with them.

I'll mention Hopkins, and they've no idea who I'm talking about. Jay Abraham? Nope, who's he?

Some of them had heard of Ogilvy, which is a start, but none of them had bothered reading any of his books.

It's like talking to an art student who doesn't know who Picasso was, has heard of Monet, but never actually seen any of his paintings.

Anyway, to answer your question, I imagine some of them end up in marketing ... but the best marketers study the best of what's gone before and that stuff doesn't appear to be taught at uni.

Steve