Hey everyone, I've been doing some research on these two programs for second year and am just looking for some other opinions on the pros and cons of each. To get the ball rolling it seems like management is basically a business minor to go along with my degree whereas in society I take global awareness courses, etc, as well as still have enough electives to get a minor of my choosing.

i was in the same position as u. I wanted to get into mgmt but ended up in soc cause my marks werent that great. u need like a 7 average to get into mgmt. basically mgmt forces u to take the full business minor degree. It looks and sounds better when u graduate if u wana focus on business side. However im happy i ended up with society. Society i can still take a business minor and u dont have to take every single one of the minor courses. It just takes more work at the end to get the minor attached to the end (gotta hand in ur graduation card early or something, apparently only the first few people who hand in the graduation card get the title or something idk it's weird). Also, the society part teaches you about community awareness and sustainability. In the current meta where the whole world is going green, it is good that u know about green awareness etc and shows you are more of a "global" engineer ahead of time without any further training.

tl;dr both are good programs u can end up with the same business minor. Society gives u abit of extra with green awareness and u dont need to take all the courses but mgmt is full on business. apply to both anyways

I chose management because I am really interested in business classes, and I would have taken them as my electives regardless

pros
- you take lots of business courses that you take that you may not have otherwise thought of to take
- meet awesome people since you pretty much have identical class time schedules as everyone else
- you can get off from going into the real world for another year!

cons
- since the business courses are in a different faculty, many assignments and tests for most classes usually lie within a few days so time management is needed
- tests for business classes are a different style, and take a while to get used to. eng classes have 4 or 5 questions while rarely exceed 8 (for civil) in a 2 hour test, business have 30 - 60 in 60 mins often so the first couple tests i did not pace myself and didnt have time to finish

stefan made a good point. the tests are kinda different and i did bad on my frist business course

I'm also doing the Society + Business Minor combo because I didn't get into Management. That's perfect though, because the majority of people I know in Management regret taking it, if they haven't already withdrawn from it.

If you're going for the minor in business too, you also have the option of taking electives that you don't normally take, like 2KA3 (Info Systems) and 2QA3 (Stats) which are a little less dry imo than stuff like Accounting and Finance. Not to mention that if you're a Childs fanboy like I am, you can take Stats 2B03 instead of 2QA3, which Childs teaches on a regular basis.

Also, there always seems to be some confusion about the following line:

Enrolment in each of the Commerce courses comprising the Business Minor, (excluding students registered in Engineering and Management, Commerce and Labour Studies students enrolled in COMMERCE 2BA3 and 3BC3 and students admitted to the Minor in Finance and the Minor in Accounting and Financial Management Services) is limited to 40 students who are registered in a four- or five-level McMaster degree program. Places in these courses will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

All this means is that there will only be 40 seats available per class for those students pursuing the minor. This means you should be ready to fight Solar right when course registration opens, otherwise you won't get in. Once you're in and done all your classes, there's no limit to how many students can declare the minor once you submit your graduation card.

Originally Posted by Snowman

- tests for business classes are a different style, and take a while to get used to. eng classes have 4 or 5 questions while rarely exceed 8 (for civil) in a 2 hour test, business have 30 - 60 in 60 mins often so the first couple tests i did not pace myself and didnt have time to finish

both 2FA3 and 2AB3 this term have had 2 midterms with 40 multiple choice/true false in 120 mins. 2AA3 was similar but with long answer as well.

EDIT: I forgot management students don't take those this year... BI for the win!

Originally Posted by julianface

both 2FA3 and 2AB3 this term have had 2 midterms with 40 multiple choice/true false in 120 mins. 2AA3 was similar but with long answer as well.

EDIT: I forgot management students don't take those this year... BI for the win!

The one I was thinking of was 2MA3 marketing had 60 long worded questions in 60 mins and it was very hard to finish.

Management is awesome, and has more courses than just your business minor.

Pros:
Compared to your eng courses, the business ones are much easier, so they make your hard semester easier if you pick and choose your courses well.
Management courses really help learn stuff you wouldn't otherwise (not included in your minor if you go straight business)
Con:
As mentioned earlier, sometimes courses do line up so that you have 3 tests in 3 days, or multiple assignments in a week. (or like I just had, two tests back back)

The following is pasted together from past messages I've sent regarding advice about eng+society - i hope it still all makes sense:

So, society is AWESOMESAUCE. You have another year, but the workload is spread out over another year, so compared to everyone else i talked to i had a much lighter schedule and load.

Besides that fact, you also take society courses that deal with environmentalism, history of technology, inquiry, and soft skills like presentations, meetings.. etc! The profs are SO awesome. I've really found professionally the writing and social skills have helped me.

ALSO you get to take focus electives perhaps towards a minor!! I got a minor in theatre and film studies! Those courses (sometimes) as well as the society courses REALLY help to boost your mark which is HUGE, for me at least. Society courses with all the work done decently are pretty much automatic 10-12's. Electives, depending on the course, can make it all better, too! ^^

As far as society assignments... most classes we had a paper due every week (double sided page double spaced - if you have an idea on what you want to talk about it takes like 20 minutes to write in one sitting) as well as our major assignment at the end. The project was done in groups of three, but you had all year to do it. It was about 20-25 pages total. 2nd year first term (1st year society) was an inquiry (ours was "why do people shop at grocery stores instead of the farmer's market?") and second term was a technology research project (a technology thats at least 300 years old, review it through time - we did music players.) Later you do more inquiry-based stuff and research projects... I always found it very enjoyable and the people around you are generally hardworking and you can trust them in group projects.

I really enjoyed it If anything its writing practice - and engineers dont usually get much creative writing done!

I can also tell you that in your final year you do an inquiry (with society) with any supervisor of your choice on any topic. Some people have done it on chemicals in the water, semiconductors, why Dr. Baetz is awesome, and I did mine on sustainable feminine hygiene products (I was on such a huge kick about them!!). It's really rewarding to do your own ISU on something you REALLY care about.


TL;DR: Society is awesome if you want to decide your own path and be a critical thinker!