Could I study economics at ILR?

<p>Is that part of the curriculum there? Also, what about communications/journalism?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>Absolutely! ILR has six departments, one of which is ILR</a> Cornell: Department of Labor Economics. ILR is essentially the best place in the country for an undergrad to study labor economics. </p>

<p>You are required to take micro and macro in freshman year (unless you place out of them in high school) and then the Economics of Wages and Employment (ILRLE 240) during sophomore year. You can declare an informal "concentration" in labor economics or just plain Arts and Sciences econ as well - more info on [url=<a href="http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/studentservices/curriculum/concentrations.html%5DConcentrations%5B/url"&gt;http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/studentservices/curriculum/concentrations.html]Concentrations[/url&lt;/a&gt;] . I was strongly considering it, and may still do it, we'll see. The department has many cool electives, and you are welcome to take plenty of classes outside of ILR in economics.</p>

<p>Regarding communications and journalism, the ILR School does not offer formal courses about them, but a sizable portion of alumni go into those fields. ILR, however, does definitely develop your writing and communication skills, not to mention learning how to glean information from obscenely long reading assignments.</p>

<p>you can take plenty of non-labor econ and comm. courses outside of the school</p>

<p>for the econ concentration, does anyone know if PAM340 or PAM334 would count as upper level econ classes (I'm guessing they don't...but if they do I'm almost done with a concentration, unintentially)</p>

<p>The concentration requirements for econ from ILR are:
Econ 101/102 (intro micro/macro)*
ILRLE 240 (intro labor econ)*
ILRST 212 (stats)*
Econ 313/314 (intermediate micro and macro theory)
Econ 321 (Econometrics)
Two courses at the 300/400 level in Econ
* are required for ILR anyway</p>

<p>I doubt the PAM courses would count but you can check it with Virginia Freeman. I think ILR is a good place to study labor econ, but if you want to do a PhD afterwards you have to really have a lot of initiative so you can complete advanced math (you can get ILR out of college elective credit for a couple of them, but you'd get them with the econ anyway). I wish I would have known earlier-- to study PhD labor econ you'd also have to take multivariable calc, linear algebra (preferably the advanced theory track), real analysis, mathematical probability, and mathematical statistics. The labor econ courses at ILR are not mathematical at all. If you just want an conceptual overview of labor econ, then no need to go through all of that ;)</p>

<p>one of my friends who graduated from ILR last year is currently at MIT for his PhD in econ. I'm not sure what classes he took, though...</p>

<p>hm, yeah, that must be me ;)
I graduated last year from ILR and am doing a PhD at MIT Sloan's Institute for Work and Employment Research, focusing on labor and organizational economics (so I take about half my classes with the Econ PhDs). Unfortunately there aren't any ILRies in MIT Econ's PhD cohort entering in 07. The last was several years back-- someone who did research with Prof Ehrenberg.
I took a full year of econ (including mathematical ones like theory and econometrics) studying abroad at Oxford, as well as additional stats and labor econ at ILR. Unfortunately I never took real analysis so I didn't apply to any PhD econ programs, mostly organizational behavior programs. I didn't figure out that I wanted to study econ later on, and didn't know how much math was involved, so again my warning-- take as much math as you can stomach if you want to do PhD-level work in economics! And of course feel free to PM me. </p>

<p>My Econ:
ECON 101, 102
ILRLE 140: Development of Economic Institutions
ILRLE 240: Labor Econ
Oxford: Economic Theory (got credit for ECON 313/314) (req multivar calc)
Oxford: Labor Economics
Oxford: Development Economics (ECON 371)
Oxford: Econometrics (ECON 321) (requires linear algebra & calc)
Oxford: Thesis Preparation in Game Theory (requires multivar calculus)
ILRLE 642: Econ of the Welfare State</p>

<p>Stats/ Stats-intensive:
ILRST 210/211: Statistical Methods I/II
DSOC 201: Population Dynamics
DSOC 213: Social Indicators, Data Analysis, and Management
Oxford: Econometrics
ILRLE 447: Social and Economic Data
ILRST 312: Applied Regression Analysis</p>

<p>I think this was an ok prep for applying to PhD programs but I wish I took additional math (analysis, mathematical prob and statistics)</p>

<p>Oh yeah, to get back on track, of course you could take journalism and comm courses as electives out of ILR ;) communications dept is in the ag school.</p>