<p>I'm a parent trying to help my D make a decision. I know every school is different, but does anyone who attends a state school have any experience with introductory econ? Can you tell me what might be the difference between a regular econ classand an honors econ class? Specifically, would it be more and harder math?</p>
<p>Surprisingly enough, at the 3,000 4-year colleges in this country the content of the intro econ course varies. So does the difference between the regular and honors class. While people on this forum might enjoy speculating about the differences that must apply at every one of those colleges between regular and honors econ, the truth is the only set of differences that matters is the one at your D's school. Why doesn't she ask some people who've taken econ at her school?</p>
<p>You might try googling the classes. Look for the syllabus for the regular class and the syllabus for the honors class and just compare the two. Sometimes they are the same class with more work for honor students.</p>
<p>You can watch a complete semester of Intro to Econ lectures at Berkeley at this site:</p>
<p>UC</a> Berkeley Webcasts | Video and Podcasts: Econ 100A</p>
<p>Whether or not you should take honors is based on a student to student basis. If the student is looking to go to law school down the road, then the hit to GPA as a result of the honors class is not worth it. However, if a student is at a school that is not very challenging, then an honors class may be the only way to get the rigor needed to proper challenge a student intellectually.</p>
<p>From my experience at BC, honors classes take a lot more work and are much harder because you're competing with the honors kids in your classes for grades, instead of competing with the general population.</p>
<p>Honours economics at McGill is insanely difficult compared to the regular program. The only reason for pursuing honours econ at McGill is to prepare yourself for advanced study in economics. Before the financial crisis, someone with a 3.5+ GPA and an honours econ degree could waltz into an i banking job, but now that option is closed.</p>
<p>The reason why someone would take honor economics is the same as why someone would want to go to Harvard.</p>
<p>1.Recognition.
2.Superior Education
3.Smarter and more motivated classmates
4.Generally smaller classes.
5.Prepares you better for grad school.
6.Bragging rights.</p>
<p>The GPA argument is valid if she really needs the grades for an award, or economics is already very hard for her. </p>
<p>Probably they would expect her to either know calculus or learn calculus fast. But all she needs to know from calculus is derivatives, infinite series, and optimization for intro. microecon.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. You've been helpful. She keeps getting mixed messages from kids who have taken the honors class.</p>
<p>I took the honors econ class at my school. I think its completely inaccurate to say that the reason to take honors econ is the same reason to apply to harvard. </p>
<p>At my school, the introductory econ classes are either micro or macro econ (as in intro to micro and macro are different classes). The honors class combines both, so if you're looking to be an econ major, it takes care of two classes instead of just one. However, the biggest reason i took it instead of the regular econ classes is the class size. At my school, the honors econ class was about 20 students, as opposed to 75-100 students in the basic introductory courses. For me, small class sizes (especially for harder subjects like econ) make all the difference. Of course, the reasons I just give are specific to my university, but the point is that there are more benefits then prestige or the "honors" title.</p>
<p>^
Ummm prestige is only worth 2/7 of my reasons... so that not what I meant.</p>
<p>It wasn't a personal attack on you, I was just saying that Raindrip's daughter shouldn't think that prestige is the main reason for taking an honors course.</p>