<p>I just graduated yesterday and I plan on majoring in economics with the intention of going into entrepeneurship or I-banking etc. these things appeal to me because I find it exciting to be playing around with the world's most important factor of production (capital). The thing is, My high school grades were somewhat mediocre. Heres my background for the things that pertain to economics:</p>
<p>Freshman year math: C</p>
<p>Sophmore year math: B- Economics: B</p>
<p>Junior year math: C Economics: B</p>
<p>Senior year math: C+ AP Macroeconomics: B </p>
<p>SAT math: 580</p>
<p>so yeah.. thats me:D</p>
<p>I know how to handle math and numbers etc... but it gets to me some times. I am, however, very interested in economics. I went to a very difficult school and even though my economics teacher thinks i'll be okay... im kinda worried. </p>
<p>Wait, you took three years of economics in HS? Seems kind of weird. Nevertheless, the fact that you got B’s in all your HS econ classes don’t exactly fill me with confidence regarding your college future… honestly, no Econ major I’ve ever met has ever considered intro Econ to be challenging. </p>
<p>Here’s what you’ve got to understand:</p>
<ol>
<li>Intermediate micro will be much, much harder than intro. If intro was challenging enough for you to get a B… </li>
<li>Economics is the one of the most math-intensive fields out there. I guarantee you that you will meet a lot of econ professors who majored in math. While nowadays econ curriculum tend to be wimpy and not necessarily math intensive, they at the very least require calculus and some sort of stat/econometrics. And judging from your math grades, you won’t particularly enjoy these classes. </li>
<li>I-banking… err, you should note that even before the financial meltdown IBanks recruited almost exclusively from a group of very selective colleges, and even students from those schools had to get pretty damn good grades to be considered. Your chances of breaking into I-banking, as predicted by your current grades, are not high. Especially since you don’t seem particularly gifted quantitatively. </li>
<li>Economics has nothing to do with entrepreneurship.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Here’s my honest opinion: I don’t know about the college you’re going to, and it might be very easy. But from my experiences, if you get a B in high school economics, the econ courses in college will make those day seem easy.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. But I never actually took any sort of micro-economics at school… it was all Macro. intro, intro again(lol) and then the AP stuff. And as for the college I’m attending, its a college here in my home country. It will be easy but thats only because I go to the most difficult private school in the country(literally, lol). I am sure I can pull off As in the economics and business courses, and maybe even statistics… its the advanced algebra and game theory etc. that im worried about… I can probably make it with private lessons, though… thanks for the advice… anyone else?</p>
<p>And one more thing… I landed an internship at Barclays this summer through connections… will that help? (im referring to the internship and the connections by the way, lol)</p>
<p>You never took micro? Well, micro is far more math intensive than macro. I’m a bit puzzled, why are you confident you’ll get A’s in econ classes? Is your high school that challenging? I mean, no offense, but overconfidence has hurt a lot of my peers.</p>
<p>The internship likely won’t help you with the major at all. Economics is not something you can just take an intro class in and then suddenly apply in a workplace.</p>
<p>Oh no, I did not mean to come off as cocky at all! I must note, however, that my school (along with 2 other schools) happens to be a feeder school to the college im going to and most people coming out of MY school (in specific) tend to do well during the first year. Then it all comes down to work ethic for the other 3 years. I am very motivated and will do whatever it takes to master any sort mathermatical/statistical course that comes my way. I dont consider myself to be bad at math, but merely an artsy type of student who likes to challenge himself often. my plan is to try to do very well for my first 2 years ( grades and lots of internships etc) and then apply to Cornell for transfer (since Cornell is known to look for “fit type” of students for their majors)… so yeah. definitely didnt mean to sound cocky or anything.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to be an economist per se, you might be able to sneak a degree an avoid a lot more math than people are telling you. Depends on your school. At my current one they give you the option of getting a BS or a BA in Economics. The BS requires you to take one of the math intensive senior classes as well as extra science electives(like, astronomy, chemistry or whatever I guess). The BA requires a foreign language proficiency. Aside from Intermediate Micro, Macro(which I’ve taken and which are not nearly as hard as Calculus II or AP Calculus BC…at least in terms of the difficulty of the math components) and Economic Statistics, you could get away with taking nothing but soft economics classes. History of Economics, Economics of Development, Economics of Latin America, Comparative Economic Systems, etc etc etc. While these might be challenging in terms of reading and research in a way that Intermediate Microeconomics isn’t, if you aren’t good at math that would be the way to go. </p>
<p>You’d probably be totally incapable of taking a job as an “Economist” and probably have a horrible time if you tried to go to grad school in economics, but there’s plenty of people in business with degrees in liberal arts and whatnot and you’d probably still be slightly ahead of them, I think, in terms of marketability.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info Jonahrubin. How many “Economists” are there out there these days? haha. I want to do Investment banking (front office jobs: Merge consultancy, Financial consultancy etc) or maybe entrepreneurship because my country has alot of unused resources and I think my creativity could be a benefactor in this situation. Either way, I just want to get an education that will ensure that I fully understand how the world works financially.</p>
<p>Hmmm… I would think someone who would struggle with economics would be someone who is not so good at math and struggles when dealing with graphs. There was a post about such a person not too long ago. Perhaps you remember it. I have a feeling you do.</p>
<p>haha well, I’ve overcome that and Im actually very good with the long and short run phillips curve now (my old problem). So yeah… now its just the applied maths that im afraid of.</p>
<p>Let me give it to you in plain and simple english, so that you can understand what I mean. In 7th grade, when I applied to CTY ( center for talented youth), one of the prerequisites was that I had to take the SAT. So I got a terrible Critical Reading score ( 580), but my mathematics score got me into the program ( 680). Now, the fact that I was better at you in mathematics in 7th grade, than you were when you took the SAT ( junior year??) should probably tell you something about your chances of breaking into a quantitative-heavy industry. I currently have a 780 Math SAT Level 2 score, a proof for Fermat’s theorem, and a 34 score on the ACT math section. ( SAT mathematics is 750-800). Even with these scores, I am praying to god that I get the chance to get accepted to a good college and have the chance to get my shoe into ibanking. I understand you have great connections, and that will certainly get your shoe in the industry. ( The hardest part) But, if you do become an analyst you have to outwork and outshine all of your peers. And if you can do that in your own country, congrats. If you want to work in the United States, your chances are extremely slim to none. First off you are international, and internationals usually NEVER get jobs in ibanking. Secondly, for investment banking, you usually need to have gone to a “target school.” And what I mean is ivies, usually top 25 schools, top undergrad B programs, and top LAC’s. Many of these schools DO NOT accept int’l transfer students, and the transfer acceptance rate is usually about ~3-10% at the school types I mentioned. </p>
<p>I just want to wish you all the best luck. I hope my knowledge was of good use to you. I hate seeing you loathing around, and the fact you’re majoring in economics after doing so terrible at your “difficult” school.</p>
<p>Im doing I-banking in my own country, by the way. I think wall street has done enough damage to our world. lol. sorry, but thats just me. So yeah… Thanks for the info.</p>
<p>"I hope my knowledge was of good use to you. I hate seeing you loathing around, and the fact you’re majoring in economics after doing so terrible at your “difficult” school. " dont use that tone.</p>
<p>And please keep this thread productive, people. Your slander is of no use to me, NuclearPakistani; You can criticize but dont use that (I am much better than you at math) tone. I could just as easily tell you im much more well-connected and then you’re argument would be as useless as you are… But im not dirty… Ray192 and jonahrubin were being somewhat critical but atleast I got what they’re trying to say… For everyone else, let me completely rephrase my question… Are Calculus III, Linear Algebra, and multivariable calculus absolutely necessary for Economics majors (bachelor of arts, mind you)? I mean, Even though im sort of a B- to C student in math, I think I can handle one of these courses along with statistics if I put my mind to it… I would very much appreciate it if someone can show me an appropriate schedule for an Economics major. For my first year, I want to take an economics course, an easy calculus course, Psychology, Writing, and statistics… how does that look?</p>