Finance and Operations Majors:
An Overview

Finance:
The finance major prepares you for an entry level job in many areas including investments, corporate finance, banking, and risk management. The long-term goal for many Finance majors is a position as a financial manager. Specific job titles included in this category are treasurer, controller, credit manger, risk manger, and insurance manager. Controllers direct the preparation of all financial reports and coordinate the day-to-day financial processing of an institution. Cash and credit managers monitor and control the flow of cash receipts and disbursements to meet the business and investments needs of the firm. Risk and insurance managers oversee programs to minimize risks and losses that may arise from financial transactions and business operations taken by the institution.

Operations Management:
Operations managers help organizations coordinate all day-to-day procedures such as shipping and receiving, purchasing, facilities maintenance, production, personnel scheduling, and inventory control. The specific areas handled by individual operations managers varies by industry. For instance, in the airline industry, he/she might coordinate flight and maintenance scheduling, fuel consumption, and safety monitoring. In a hospital, operations management would include managing patient flow, coordination of the pharmacy, laboratory and transporting patients and equipment. Entry-level positions in this field might include purchasing agent, production supervisor, inventory control coordinator, product designer, materials handling manager, quality assurance coordinator or transportation supervisor. Long-term goals may include overall operations management or related work in operations research analysis.