@CheddarcheeseMN I agree, which is why I haven’t finalized my decision yet. I’m still not even sure whether I want to continue studying pure math or economics. If I do decide on econ, are there any good ways to prepare myself /make myself more competitive for grad school in the next 2 years? Do grades and GPA matter as much for grad school as they did for undergrad? What internship/research opportunities are available that would improve my chances and give me experience? Am I at a major disadvantage to other Berkeley students as a community college transfer?
@disyatov12 correct me if I misunderstand, why don’t you do math major with concentration on Econ? Doesn’t Berkeley have approved cluster courses?
Btw I’m a new transfer as well and planing to take stat 134 this fall. The only thing makes me hesitate taking it is 134 will involve hefty workload. According to what people told me this class designs to make student fail… I’m still asking around to see whether or not I should take it in the fall.
Preparation for PhD study generally involves the following:
- Take the needed preparatory courses (for economics, see the links in reply #6).
- Do well in them.
- Do undergraduate research (may want to find out what PhD programs in economics think of undergraduate research in math or statistics, as well as that in economics).
- Get good recommendations from the research.
- GRE may be needed.
@bizmlover that’s currently my plan. I was initially thinking the 5 extra econ classes that I’d take as a double major would make me more competitive, but it seems like I won’t be able to register for the required classes for the econ major during my first semester. People here have also convinced me that I could get the essentials by majoring in applied math with an econ concentration.
It seems like it’s almost necessary to go to a big name school in order to be able to get tenured after grad school. Even most of my professors at the community college had their master’s degrees and PhD’s from top 20 schools.
How hard is it to get into grad school at Berkeley from their own undergraduate program? Do they generally prefer students from other schools (I know a lot of universities do this)? Berkeley’s grad school admissions profile for econ says you need a 3.8 GPA and an honors thesis to be competitive for their program. With Berkeley’s grade deflation and the amount of time I’m going to need to spend on studying for classes, GRES, etc. is this even feasible?
Yes, your PhD school’s reputation in your major is typically highly important in academic hiring for tenure-track faculty jobs.
This is likely very department-specific. Chemical engineering specifically states that on its web site, but some other departments have PhD students who were Berkeley undergraduates. You may want to go through the roster of PhD students on the economics department web site, and/or just ask the department directly. It does look like the economics department is at least somewhat willing to take Berkeley undergraduates as PhD students, since here is a CV of a recent graduate who earned both BA and PhD from Berkeley: https://sites.google.com/site/markborgschulte/cv-borgschulte.pdf . Note that he also has a list of Berkeley classes that he recommends at https://sites.google.com/site/markborgschulte/berkeleyclassesirecommend .