Academic Majors Overview: Among the credentials and academic majors that will facilitate a career in financial services, a firm grounding in finance and economics, whether gained at the undergraduate or graduate level, will be a huge plus.
Meanwhile, do not forget that there are multiplicity of other functions in the industry. Depending on your interests and ambitions, knowledge of other disciplines also may be important to your career development. These may include, but are hardly limited to: marketing, statistics, computer science and law.
Overall, though, a good liberal arts education probably is the most valuable training of all. Specific academic majors usually are not that important. You should be able to write, think and speak clearly and logically. Basic algebra should be second nature to you, and you should have easy facility with constructing basic mathematical models. In short, you must be both literate and numerate, highly adaptable to new situations. Being able to think creatively in new, unforeseen circumstances is the most important key to success.
Finally, with the pervasiveness of PC-based desktop computing, you should be competely conversant with the core suite of Microsoft programs: MS Word for document creation, MS Excel for spreadsheets, MS Outlook for e-mail and MS PowerPoint for creating slide presentations.
