An Accounting degree is by far better than a Finance degree unless you happen to be going to a top university known for it's undergraduate finance program like Stern or Wharton.
They don't teach you how to invest assets in undergraduate Finance because of the liability and if they knew how, they sure wouldn't share the information. They will teach you efficient market theories, wheras the markets are inefficient. They will teach you about the history of the markets, teach you formulas and basic regulation related information but you can learn all of that on the job and what you need to know is covered by most training programs at firms and on the NASD licenses that you take.
So why accounting? Accounting teaches you how to read financial statements and pick investments, manage business venture capital and determine where profits are being made and lost. It helps you analyze the overall health of a business and helps you stay in compliance with related business laws and practices regarding taxation. It might not sound glamorous to people outside the industry, but for people who actually have worked in finance for a few years, you'd know that the CFA exam covers Financial Statement Analysis in depth and the CFA is required to work for most Mutual Fund companies picking investments. So by simply getting your degree in Accounting you are more geared towards the CFA track of investment analysis. In other words, you actually learn more about Finance in Accounting than you do in Finance.
If you've ever read the Intelligent Investor by the value investor Ben Graham you would also know that Ben Graham's work is more Financial Statement Analysis related than directly "Finance Related". Him and his student Warren Buffett actually were students of Economics and not Finance. Most top universities don't offer undergrad finance degrees in the first place. I personally think that the Finance degree is a misrepresentation. Most universities only offer a few undergrad courses in Finance and you can take those as electives in an Accounting degree. A finance degree has actually become more of a mix of related and semi-related courses.
So to answer your question, pick accounting. Get your CPA and CFA.
You can check out analystforum.com or
www.cfainstitute.org for more info on the CFA. In the end it all depends on what you want to do.
Regarding the previous post, i-bankers are typically required to be working on their CFAs. If you aren't strong to proficient in accounting you will fail the CFA and could lose your i-banker job.
I do agree that finance is important in general and does correlate to being a successful entrepreneur, but a lot of those finance related traits don't require a degree in Finance to learn. The biggest problem entrepreneurs have is in investing capital. And a Finance degree simply won't teach you enough to do this successfully. You will learn more with the right mentors or in accounting. I encourage you to go speak with the dean of your college who is over the Finance department and ask him what it is you will learn in Finance. You will not be taught how to pick investments, so how can you be taught how to manage risk efficiently?
They will teach you three main things: CAPM, EMH, MPT
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capm.asp
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/...hypothesis.asp
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/...oliotheory.asp
The problem with this is all these theories where created by mathematicians that specialized in statistics. So what you get is a brief introduction to these theories and no real exploration. You are left with a series of hypotheticals that are worthless. And when you get out of the finance degree program and get a job, all you firms investments will be picked by guys who have their CFAs, CPAs and degrees in Accounting, Applied Statistics and Financial Engineering. Whereas you will just be the person who tells your clients that you enter their data in the software and it will tell them how to diversify the assets. Don't believe me, contact any financial planner out there and that is what they are currently doing. They don't let you pick investments at Merrill Lynch for your clients and they don't let you at Morgan Stanely either.
To get a full exploration you would have to be enrolled in a Financial Engineering Program and most schools only start offering this in Graduate school. This is where you learn about financial modeling and financial statistical analysis in depth and understand why the MPT indicates one security has a better risk/return correlation than another.
The biggest problem I think you have in undergrad finance is the underlying principles of EMH or Efficient Market Theory that they push onto students.
Defined as:
"An investment theory that states that it is impossible to "beat the market" because stock market efficiency causes existing share prices to always incorporate and reflect all relevant information."
The markets have to be efficient otherwise, finance really cannot be taught. If the markets where inefficient then it would be undefinable for the most part and would be more about statistics or probability. The problem I have with this theory is I think the markets are inefficient, therefore the cirriculum must incorporate inefficient market principles that are more statistics based. Which no undergrad program really offers.
So it all comes down to what you believe. If you believe the markets are efficient, then major in Finance. If you think they are inefficient, major in Accounting, Applied Statistics or Financial Engineering if it's offered.
I'd encourage you to read the books Market Wizards and Investment Gurus. Both are books with professional traders and all believe in inefficient market theory and most discredit college finance programs and a lot are value investors utilizing complex financial statement analysis based in accounting. I think if you have to, you'd be better of going the route of Applied Economics over Finance.
