What Can You Do with a Business Degree?

In an ever-changing world, today’s students need to be prepared to engage with new ideas—and make contributions of their own. 

But, in practical terms, what can prospective students do to build a foundation for a successful future? Earning a business degree is a good choice to prepare you for a career in any number of industries—even those that have yet to be invented. 

What can you do with a business degree? This is the question that will guide this article. Below, we’ll break down the real-world value of a business degree, explore career options, and more.  

Introduction: Navigating the Business Degree Landscape

What do business majors do? During their degree programs, they unlock skills that become invaluable, versatile tools in the job market. 

Business degrees can prepare you for a specialized field as well as give you a broad enough skill set to have considerable flexibility in your choice of career.

Business school isn’t just for aspiring stockbrokers or bankers—far from it. A business degree from a reputable institution gives degree holders a strong base in key skills used in every sector of the global economy. You’ll graduate with a comprehensive understanding of:

• Economics in theory and application
• Financial markets and speculation
• Marketing—digital, traditional, and emerging
• Data analytics and the economy of information
• Accounting and bookkeeping
• Business administration and organization

Essentially, a business degree program is a crash course in how the global economy works and how companies are built.

How a Business Degree Prepares You for a Diverse Career Spectrum

Business degree graduates will find themselves prepared for a wide variety of careers after graduation. Each of the skills you will learn over the course of a business degree is in demand in its own right, but mastery of all of them provides a diversified skillset that is very attractive to prospective employers.

However, completing a degree program also shows employers that you have skills that will benefit you in just about any career, including:

• Time management
• Realistic goal-setting
• Communication and collaboration
• Perseverance and drive
• Commitment to long-term goals

Career options for business program graduates are somewhat limitless. Below are just a few career choices that a business degree can set you up for.

Traditional Business Careers

Global economic value has grown explosively over the last two centuries. With new markets continuing to emerge as more countries reach higher levels of development and integration with the international market, opportunities in traditional sectors are more ample than ever.

A business degree can set you up for a successful career in any of these domains. Let’s see how.

Finance and Banking Roles

The banking and financial services sectors represent an enormous chunk of the global GDP. In the US, it’s around 8% of the national economy, or $1.7 trillion, and in the UK it’s 10%.

This covers both traditional lending institutions and a wide array of other financial service providers, like:

• Banks
• Credit unions
• Wealth and asset management 
• Hedge funds
• Mutual funds
• Investment firms 
• Venture capital
• Real estate finance
• Insurance providers

Banking capital is a huge driver of both domestic economies as well as international development. This means that the opportunities for young graduates are myriad and diverse. 

How does a business degree help prepare for a career in this field? A business degree will give you a solid understanding of the economics behind debt, investment, and development; you’ll learn the ins and outs of stocks, interest rates, amortized debt, EBITDA, and so much more. 

In addition, a business degree will give you the hard skills required by diverse professions within the sector. Whether you’re planning on a career as a financial advisor or day trader, or if you’re targeting accounting and bookkeeping roles, business school is the best choice to break into the industry.

Management and Operations Positions 

Besides finance, much of the remainder of global GDP is made up of the many different public and private industrial, manufacturing, services, and agricultural concerns that make the world go round.

All of these require administrators and operations managers. Business school will teach you how business is actually done every day across the world. 

How?

C-suite execs and middle managers alike need to understand:

• Supply chains
• Product management
• Business and labor law
• Leadership and organizational theory
• Information systems management
• Statistical data evaluation

A grasp of these concepts is the key to success for entrepreneurs and managers. A business degree is an excellent choice for anyone aspiring to run a company or start their own entrepreneurship ventures.

Marketing and Sales Opportunities 

The old idea that salespeople are born and not made no longer holds true. Sales techniques have advanced alongside our understanding of consumer psychology and behavior. 

Nowadays, the best sales and marketing techniques can be taught—and they are the cornerstone of sales education at business schools around the world.

Business schools offer coursework on consumer motivations and buying patterns as well as how successful marketers and salespeople use these to generate customer leads and make sales. 

Of course, marketing is a constantly changing field. We’ll come back to the subject of digital marketing later on. 

A business degree will teach any prospective marketing professional why and how people buy.

Human Resources Management

Business school is also an excellent way to prepare for a career in human resources. You’ll learn both management techniques and the theoretical underpinnings of how businesses structure their personnel, recruit talent, and maintain a positive and productive work environment.

Human resources courses will provide insight on:

• Meeting regulatory requirements
• Complying with employment laws
• Promoting inclusion and diversity in the workplace
• Developing leadership across company organizational charts
• Securing and retaining top talent
• Curating benefits and compensation packages
• Creating sensible workplace guidelines for professionalism

In short, human resources professionals are the backbone of any business. An education in human resource management can prepare students to contribute to just about any field. 

Emerging Fields in Business

What will the world look like in ten years? In twenty?

While no one has a crystal ball, business school does more than prepare students for the working world of today—one of the main advantages of a business degree is the ability it gives students to anticipate future professional landscapes.

With a focus on new and emerging technologies, industries, and careers, business schools give students the tools to understand how changes to production and labor—whether driven by new technologies, like AI and automation, or massive global shifts in energy production, like the green transition—shape the way business is done worldwide.

Digital Marketing and E-commerce 

The marketers of the twentieth century could never have predicted the rise of influencer marketing and TikTok as a mainstay of how to reach customers. And the marketers of today are rushing to predict the next big trend in sales.

According to forecasting experts, digital marketing will be worth $1.5 trillion by 2030. As social media and digital platforms push marketers to find more innovative solutions, business students can gain an edge by studying emerging platforms and learning to use the most up-to-date techniques to reach consumers.

Business Analytics and Data Management 

Information is the basis for good business practices in any sector. Digital technologies make it easier to both gather and parse data and statistics. However, the sheer quantity of data businesses can collect makes analytics more challenging than ever before. Any given day, businesses accrue:

• Customer data from marketing interactions
• Marketing campaign reports
• Production statistics 
• Supply chain data
• IT and cybersecurity performance data
• Financial reporting figures

This is just the beginning. Undergraduate and graduate business programs teach students how to sift through a mountain of data and extract relevant information, assemble statistics, and produce informative analyses. 

No business can run optimally without these skills—and business students can explore cutting-edge strategies that will make them even more valuable prospects in tomorrow’s job market. 

Sustainability and Green Business Practices

Modern business schools also place particular emphasis on how to develop sustainable business practices and participate in the green transition—and rightly so. 

Dedicated coursework on how organizations make this shift, on potential growth sectors like renewable and green energy, or in sustainable industry and environmental restoration can help graduates position themselves for a career as highly in-demand green experts.

Conclusion: Next Steps

The demand for educated workers with theoretical and applied expertise is growing exponentially, with millions of new jobs opening up across business fields each year. Both undergraduate admissions options and graduate programs offer a springboard toward future success like no other.

Whether you’re on the lookout for graduate admissions information to enhance an existing career or you’re looking to build a toolkit for a wide variety of fields, a business degree gives you a breadth of options like few others do.

Learn more about Thomas Jefferson University’s BS in Business Administration to get started. Our business program can help prepare you for a career in any of the industries mentioned above, as well as those that don’t exist yet. Our business administration program offers minors in HR, Organizational Leadership, and IT management for further specialization, setting our graduates up for successful, lifelong careers in growth sectors.

Apply today and take the first step towards your future!