So, say you wanted to become a billionaire within the next 5-10+ years, what should you go on to study at university? And then what?
Computer Science? Engineering?
What would you do?
Who cares, you are only going to drop out anyway 
Why do you say that?
From what I understand, most of the people who became billionaires didn’t become so by setting out to become billionaires, but because of a passion for invention or business.
That said, if becoming rich is your number one goal, get an MBA.
Well, if you had said millionaire then there’s quite a few paths, including some high tech careers, that can lead there. So several majors could be helpful.
But you said billionaire. I don’t think any college major is the path in that case, because it isn’t a specific job that ever got anybody that far. Rather, every billionaire I’m aware of became one by owning a business. And it really doesn’t matter what kind of business. There are billionare high tech people, like Bill Gates, but there are also billionaire retailers, like Sam Walton. It’s not the kind of business but the kind of person and the specifics of the business environment.
Not that I’m saying education can’t help. Depending on the field, it might help a lot. In many cases, a degree in business wouldn’t be bad, and in specific circumstances CS or engineering would give you a leg up. But what I’m saying is that that is far from the key factor in getting you to a billion dollars.
Nobody ever became a billionaire working for somebody else. Most of today’s billionaires dropped out of school and started their own businesses early. They had drive and a vision. Going to college just teaches you how other people do things.
That is what I was going to say. A billionaire in 5 to 10 years? I assume merely have many millions now. Only a very small number of people have ever become billionaires that quickly starting from comparatively little. You can’t do anything in traditional business (that includes engineering) that can get you even a fraction of that much money that quickly. The logistical hurdles for the physical parts of even the most wildly successful endeavours are too long for your ambition.
You have to invent something like Facebook mostly on your own, grow it incredibly quickly and then sell much of it in an IPO. There is no school that can teach you how to do that although Harvard seems to screen well for the incredibly few that can before they go there, meet a few key people and then drop out to pursue the real interest they had all along.
The way to become a billionaire is to found a company that becomes wildly successful while retaining a substantial ownership position in the company.
People who do this don’t do it because they studied hard in college. So there is no course of study you can pursue that will make it more likely to amass a billion dollar fortune.
You can go to college and study a professional field like business, law, medicine and so on, and do so well that you are hired and rewarded with a six or seven figure salary. But that just puts you in the upper upper middle class of people who are well compensated wage slaves. You’re not going to make billions that way.
And note that nobody is going to make a billion dollars by creating the next Facebook, or next Google, or next Amazon. Those ideas have already been taken. You need to invent something that nobody knew they needed until you invent.
Temporal mechanics.
Oh, once you’ve invented your time machine, you’ve got lots of options. Go back and “scoop” something like Facebook or Windows ahead of the guys who invented them in the Original Timeline (Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates). Maybe win a lottery or make a few well-timed sports bets for seed money.
Or go back even further, invest that lottery money in some kind of trust and let it compound for a few generations (with a bunch of Mysterious Envelopes telling your lawyers to buy Yahoo! and short Enron on the appropriate dates).
No, go back even further–and arrange to be born to rich parents.
Or seduce & marry an elderly, childless, billionaire.
That won’t work either. There were many previous iterations of things like Facebook before there was a Facebook. It is the small details about exactly how it works, perfect timing, and some luck that allowed that to happen. The extreme hard work, technical skill combined with business knowledge and almost superhuman endurance are simply prerequisites. If you are missing any one of those things even a little, the whole endeavour will end up being another casualty of the tech wars and you will end up with something ranging from being severely in debt to a mere few million after you sell it to investors to provide the people that can fulfill all of those roles and divide up the proceeds among many people none of which will become billionaires either.
That applies to the Gates and Zuckerberg school of becoming a billionaire (temporarily closed for admission) which is the only proven way to become a billionaire that quickly. Steve Jobs eventually did it too but he was incredibly smart in many different ways as well as a world class asshole (business and otherwise) and it still took him decades. There may be another way left but nobody knows that yet and no school can teach it.
I’m not a billionaire so I don’t know. You should take the advice of one of these billionaires that have posted earlier.
Hey, it worked for this guy.
If you want to make an extremely large amount of money in an extremely short amount of time, you have to offer a product that:
-has an extremely low marginal cost
-appeals to an extremely large market segment
Software (this includes operating systems and websites) fits the bill like nothing else. That provides the opportunity, but then you have to milk that opportunity for all it’s worth, which will also require some business acumen. Not sure how you get both at once, other than to pursue some sort of software-related discipline during undergraduate work, and then pursue an MBA after that.
Not many people became billionaires within 5-10 years after an age at which they chose a college major (are there any besides Mark Zuckerberg?). If you’re willing to acquire wealth at a somewhat slower pace, you can study the current crop of billionaires to see how they got where they are.
What about investment banking? Aren’t they typically the highest paid profession these days?
You can make millions as an investment banker, if you’re one of the top performers in the industry. But any time you make your money from salary and bonuses and commissions you’re a wage slave. You can’t become a billionaire, or even a hundred millionaire by working for a company.
I’d study human nature - it’s probably your best bet and a big breakthrough that leads to billions.
I’m a billionaire. My degree is in English.