Why you shouldn’t study business administration or economics today.

Two experiences prompted me to write this article: Years after graduating in business administration, I finally disposed of files and files of documents from my studies. And I had a job interview with a young man who told me about his underlying frustration with his studies and his first work experience at a major bank. What I had long suspected became an anxious certainty for me. I shouldn’t have studied economics.

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As if from another time

The whole mountain of paper in folders: as is the case with such disposal campaigns, you usually sit down once and start leafing through them. Now that I’m reading all these study documents again, I realize how “crazy” the whole thing is. Back then, studying was a compulsory program for me, I just wanted to learn something real and accepted alongside my entrepreneurial activities.

At the time, I was in the fortunate position of being the only one in my class who was also a (small) entrepreneur. I was able to relate a lot of what I learned back then to my everyday life. To judge for myself and my small world whether it was right or not. And I found some of the things I had to learn a little borderline at the time. But I wanted to graduate and that was that. I didn’t have to agree with what I wrote down in the exams.

But quite honestly, what I was leafing through now, 10 years later, read like a relic from the old days. Whether it’s personnel, investments, materials management, production, marketing, management and/or, above all, organization, fundamental paradigm shifts are emerging everywhere. Is the future heading in a different direction?

There are also the perennial favorites: finance and accounting. This is, if you like, my key take-away from my studies.

The dilemma starts with the basics

The dilemma, however, starts with the basics. Take economics, for example: the fact that the classical concept was actually valid until 1930 and was replaced by Keynes after the shock of mass unemployment was extremely suspicious for me, even in my mid-twenties. The fact that the monetarists were then supposed to control everything by controlling the money supply, so to speak, lasted until the oil crisis, only to be replaced by the supply-side economists.

That’s what I call poking around in the swamp. The last 10 years have shown us just how blatantly wrong the whole concept is per se. We are in a permanent crisis, if the economists are to be believed. But the crisis is not reaching the general public. And before you let off steam in the comments section and in emails to me and write to me about how this or that profession is suffering badly: Please take a look at the statistics on earned income, taxes, quality of life and life expectancy. Life has become fundamentally better. Again, in the last 10 years.

To this day, there is still no fundamental logical concept of how the economy should function. The “first principles” are missing. The reason why this is the case is simple. The economy is a game with constantly changing rules. A reality that we are constantly adjusting. This cannot be researched. Much worse, it makes no sense to research it.

They are not sciences

And even if not many people like to hear that: Economics is not a science. Just as theology cannot be a science. Or the study of, say, doughnuts. It is a sought-after science.

Science is the accumulation of more and more knowledge about things that can be measured. What we can perceive in this way, we can assess and research. Seen in this light, science is primarily about shifting this perception curve in the direction of more knowledge. The trick is to use a theory to cover those parts that are not yet within our perception. And not to dominate or change these parts. It’s a bit like changing an equation so that a previously determined result is correct. This is exactly what economics is trying to do. And it went very wrong. For example, it is extremely rare for an economic forecast to be (and remain) accurate.

So please stop telling me about economics. The height of ridiculousness: you can even do a doctorate in it.

Academic value

You could say, ok, the academic value is secondary. I learn a lot there that I can use later in business.

That may be true for certain areas. E.g. for accounting and finance. Having a handle on figures and an idea of finances is fundamental as an entrepreneur. I’ve actually learned quite a bit in that area. Learning the legal basics certainly makes sense. But then, unfortunately, it soon comes to an end.

Because the concepts of the last 50-100 years, albeit refreshed, won’t be of much use for the next 50 years. I am more convinced of this than ever. Take the test and open a textbook on current organizational theory, for example. If you organize and manage your company in this way in the age of exponential technological progress, your company will be one of the losers. This is just one example. You can look in virtually any area. It is endless.

The age of administration is over

The most fundamental paradigm shift, however, is that companies will no longer be managed and calculated in future, but (re)designed and developed.

There should be a Bachelor’s degree in “Intrapreneurship”!

A really great new bachelor program I would call “Intrapreneurship” and teach new ways and concepts that enable companies to be pro-active in terms of new technology, resilient in terms of rapid change and agile in general.

We need to start with education

In order to initiate this cultural change, we need to tackle new concepts and ways of thinking in education. Because very few students are like the young man who applied to us: critical but not dismissive, alert and open. Most, however, take what they are taught at face value. For them, the awakening in the next few years will be particularly hard.

What to study?

Interestingly, I’m often asked that, even though I never had a traditional academic career. I’ve always done everything at the same time. And business always came first. And looking back, that was the right thing to do.

If I had to decide today what I should study, I would probably study physics, mathematics or law. Law isn’t a science either, mind you, but it’s the best generalist education you can get at the moment in terms of future careers. So as a street-smart lawyer, not as a book-smarter.

However, physics and mathematics are more important than ever in today’s world. They are, so to speak, the foundations on which everything exciting and world-changing will take place.