<p>So I was originally a math/econ major. But after considerring for awhile, I want to do some other majors then go to grad school for Econ because a I know I can do grad school in Econ as long as a get a lot of maths. Here is the thing, my current major is Electrical/Computer engineering. For this major, the I am only required to take calc 3 and the rest goes to engineering. This leaves me with no electives for other maths (like real analysis, topology) which are beneficial for grad school admissions. Finance on ther other hand, leaves me with 9 electives (I already used up 4 of them for maths) so I can use them all for math classes, and finance is more of my interest because it's closer to Econ and it's practical. So which one do you guys think I should go for?</p>
<p>So, I’m assuming you’re already a student. In that case, it’ll be hard to transfer into Business even if you want to- especially if you’ve already taken a bunch of other classes. So it might not even be an option.</p>
<p>Second, you don’t major in finance, you major in business. So you’d take management, accounting, marketing, etc. All things that have nothing to do with economics.</p>
<p>Third, I just graduated as econ/math and am now working (and have worked in the past) in finance. They are completely different subjects, especially on a graduate level. Don’t think that learning finance will be just like economics- cause it won’t. It might be interesting and helpful, but they are till very, very different.</p>
<p>Having said all of that, I think it was foolish to leave economics/math if you were certain you wanted to go into economics. Yes, you CAN go to grad school in economics without it as a major, you’re right. But you still need to take a hefty amount of economics classes to show that you have familiarity with the subject. From the people I’ve talked to in admissions, the Micro and Macro Theory courses are expected. Not only that, but nowadays MOST serious applicants have taken Econometrics and have experience in packages like STATA, R, EViews, etc. Second, it’ll be pretty hard (if not impossible) to get research with a professor or good research co-ops IN ECONOMICS if you aren’t an economics student. Departments tend to be fickle like that, and undergraduate research in economics is pretty hard to come by anyway. Also as an economics/math major, you obviously would have room for math courses.</p>
<p>To go to graduate school in economics, you NEED to take a mathematical probability and statitics class (at NEU, it’s the Probability and Statistics class). This is really not optional. Also pretty much required nowadays, except under strange circumstances, is Real Analysis. Since every single applicant will take it, it’s pretty much a requirement. If those classes aren’t required for you, you need to figure out a way to take them. Topology, group theory, etc are nice, but definitely not nearly as important as Real Analysis. I also took Statistics and Stochastic Processes, because it was suggested by a couple of admissions board members at Harvard that I talked to.</p>
<p>Sorry, but it seems like you’re confused about what major you WANT to be. If you want to study economics and math, then why aren’t you an economics and math major? And if you want to study engineering… then why are you so sure you want to do economics in grad school? And finance is a completely different subject from both of those, and the requirements (business classes) for that degree are totally different.</p>
<p>So I already got admitted to CBA…I took Probability and Stat, Calc 3, and two theory classes. Do graduate admissions care about that kind of research you do? Or they just care about whether you have previous research experiences?</p>
<p>If you’re already in CBA, then obviously you’d be finance… I’m not sure I really understand. It’s good that you already got the theory classes.</p>
<p>What do you mean, kind of research versus research experience? They’ll look at if you have experience and if you do, what you did. Obviously SOME experience is better than none. But for instance, if you had experience in the accounting department doing research- that’s great. Shows you can work, do research, you’d have nice recommendations, etc. But then why aren’t you doing accounting? They’ll wonder why you didn’t do research in a subject you are claiming to love.</p>
<p>In terms of research co-op versus professor co-op, I’d imagine that they prefer academia, but I still think working for an economist looks great too. If you’re asking about doing development economics versus labor economics… In an ideal world, think it’d be best if you did undergrad research in the field you want to go into. But I talked to a lot of professors and they all agreed that it was super common to completely change once you go to grad school.</p>
<p>I don’t quite understand your situation here. You decided that because you wanted to get a masters in economics, you were going to switch majors from econ/math, which is exactly what you need to know for econ, to EE/CE? What was the motivation to do such a thing? Now you have transferred again to CBA which is still not the area of interest that you should be concerned with. You can do economics with a finance major, yes, but what is the point of doing that if your plan is to do econ grad work? All you are doing is disadvantaging yourself by making the learning curve much steeper. </p>
<p>If you want to do finance and go to grad school, you should go to grad school for finance instead of econ. Can you explain, a little more, your motivation for leaving your econ/math major? You say you are fine to do grad level econ as long as you do enough math, but then you drop your math major…</p>
<p>Well it’s because there is no market for econ major at my country which I will return after graduating…however I can work for the government with a grad school degree in econ…so I would rather get my undergrad degree in sth at least I can use to work for being safe</p>