<p>I read on this forum a couple days ago that econ was one of the weaker offerings at Rice. This really worried me because I want to major in econ and because I think I am going to apply to Rice ED. Could people please refute this and reassure me to apply ED to Rice BECAUSE its econ department is so good</p>
<p>I'm a freshman considering being an econ major, and I can tell you that a lot of people have bad experiences with econ because the first class you can take in the econ department (econ 211, it's a pre-requisite for macro, micro, and all other econ courses) really is a bad class. It is notorious as a weed-out class, since all the professors that teach it pretty much suck. The head of the department is a horrible teacher, and he teaches the largest section of 211. The material itself is boring and almost unrelated to the actual economics you will learn later on in your econ major.</p>
<p>Since I'm still a freshman taking 211, all I can speak for is why so many people say the econ department is weak, which is partially true. Now, that being said, I have heard similar things about just every other school's econ department, since so many people find that they dislike economics after taking introductory courses. It is also very difficult to find a good professor to teach introductory economics, at just about any school I know of (if anyone has a different experience, please share it). </p>
<p>The seniors I have spoken to in the economics program have told me that after taking 211 everything gets better, and the classes become interesting and fun. And Rice is an excellent school for job placement and graduate school placement anyway, so I think you can do great being an econ major at Rice.</p>
<p>beef, i've got the same story as you, i've heard from upperclassmen majoring in math econ and econ that the upper level courses (basically everything after econ 211) are much better, smaller, and are taught by more engaging professors</p>
<p>I took the test to get out of ECON 211, but I'm in ECON 448 right now, and it's a lot more interesting.</p>
<p>Also, most introductory microeconomics classes tend to be boring. I've only heard of one professor at UT who had a really high approval rating for that class (Daniel Hamermesh).</p>
<p>How difficult are mid-to-upper level economic classes? I've heard that the intro classes are easy but it gets really hard in the upper levels.</p>
<p>I've heard the opposite: that intro classes are harder since they're boring. I actually heard that 211 is the hardest class some econ majors take at Rice...</p>
<p>You have a lot of freedom to make an econ major as challenging as you want it to be. Econ 211 is usually horribly taught and covers a random splattering of material - there's really no getting around that it's bad. I feel like econ is one of those subjects that some people are just not hardwired to understand, while some are, so a lot of people take econ 211, discover that economics isn't for them (either the hardwiring issue or just not something they find interesting) and struggle through it, which is what gives it the reputation of being hard. Most people I know who ended up actually staying economics majors didn't find it that difficult - not easy, but not something that you can't get an A in if you put some effort into it.</p>
<p>370/375 are better. Then you get to your electives, which, assuming you choose well, can be amazing. True, there are some that are fairly easy A's. There are also some that I went in to aiming for a B (great professors, but strict graders).</p>
<p>i'm gonna bump this thread cause i want to know how mathematically based economics at Rice is. I enjoy econ and am good at math but I don't want to spend most of my time at college doing mainly math. So, for all economics majors at Rice, how much of your time is spent doing problem sets and how much is spent on non-math?</p>
<p>So far, ECON 211 has been pretty theoretical and requires you to know basic math (no calculus involved). It's easy algebra basically. It's basically all about supply and demand and you drawing a bunch of graphs and analyzing what will happen if you do this, or if you do that, etc. There's no difficult math involved, but a lot of theory. Have you taken AP Micro or Macroeconomics in high school?</p>
<p>Rice has two fields of economics, however: economics (the regular economics), and mathematical economic analysis (the more mathematically and statistically based economics). Obviously, if you choose to take the latter route, you will have to take a lot more math courses than the former route. Keep in mind that economics is a relatively easy major to complete, with only the requirement of 10 courses, while mathematical economic analysis requires 6 additional courses, thus 16 total courses.</p>
<p>Here are the course requirements for completing an economics major:
Economics</a> Major - Undergraduate Studies - Economics Department, Rice University</p>
<p>Essentially, if you want to take upper level econ courses, which I'm sure you will, the most advanced math you'll have to know is single variable calculus. Though if you want to take a particular math-based econ course, you might need to know more, but it would depend and you would have to check the specific prerequisites for a course before signing up.</p>
<p>I'm taking Global Econ this semester, I'm gonna take AP Macro next semester, and I'mhappy to know that single variable calculus will be the limit (literally and figuratively haha) of the math i'll have to know. I'm still not sure if I wanna be an econ major, but thx for clarifying what econ at Rice will be like.</p>