<p>I'm a HS senior and I'm somewhat interested in economics. I've been looking around at the interwebs and I've been hearing things like "econ is UVa's easiest major" or "they are all McIntire rejects." I want to know if this kind of thing is the general perception of econ around campus. How do they do for starting salaries or graduate/law school placment? So just kinda broad general things about the major. Also is any of that effected by the prospects of concentrations, distinguished major or double majoring?</p>
<p>I actually heard the economics major is harder than McIntire.</p>
<p>Just because many economics majors didn’t get into McIntire, doesn’t mean they aren’t great students. The gpa to get into McIntire is very high. The stats are on their website.</p>
<p>At the McIntire admissions session they said the average admired GPA is 3.62… That is astronomical.</p>
<p>There was a very similar thread here less than a week ago.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/1139534-uva-economics.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/1139534-uva-economics.html</a></p>
<p>What do you want to know that wasn’t covered there?</p>
<p>Well I guess it’s partly that I’ve heard that it is a very easy major, I’ve noticed from some old CC threads(2006ish). I feel that your other thread dealt a lot with how UVa economics stand overall, whereas I would like to know a bit more about how Economics compares to the rest of UVa. I understand that it is the most popular major, but is it well respected? How does it compare to other programs offered at UVa?</p>
<p>is the economics program most likely to select more applicants than any other programs at CAS?</p>
<p>You don’t need to apply to the program, you simply declare the major – the vast majority of majors at UVa don’t have applications.</p>
<p>Why is econ popular?</p>
<p>I think econ is such a popular major because it is marketable and doable. It’s not nearly as labor intensive as something like chemistry or engineering, but it’ll still help you get a good job out of school. For this reason econ is also a popular double major choice. There are lots of students who start out majoring in something like Spanish or sociology who realize they don’t want to make 35k a year after dropping several times that on tuition. </p>
<p>How easy is the major?</p>
<p>It depends on how good you are at math. If you are a strong math student, econ will be pretty easy. Most of the classes use the same set of analytical tools applied to a range of topics. If you can effortlessly do the math required, this is not hard. On the other hand, if you struggle with math, doing well is near impossible. The math required is not high level stuff either - mostly taking partial derivatives, sometimes things like lagrange multipliers or a bit of linear algebra. </p>
<p>Another reason the major may be seen as easy is the low workload. Most of my econ classes had 4-6 problem sets that took about 4 hours each. That’s less than 2 hours per week spent on a class. This is enormously different from science classes, or even many liberal arts ones with hours of reading a day.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the low workload is a huge benefit. It opens up time for jobs, activities, or research. This is a reason to pick econ, not to not pick it.</p>
<p>Is it respected?</p>
<p>Yes. These (somewhat dated) reports show what UVa students in previous years do after graduation. Econ majors do better than the average student in terms of jobs and graduate school placement. Note that self selection is going to skew the results a bit because someone who is interested in finance is going to be more likely to major in econ vs. literature. Still, an econ degree has much more value in the eyes of employers than the average liberal arts degree because it is seen as a more business oriented education.</p>
<p>I think econ is the perfect choice for someone who is smart, but not intellectual. </p>
<p>[Careers:</a> First Destinations — Undergraduate, College of Arts & Sciences, U.Va.](<a href=“http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/college/career/resource/firstdestinations.html]Careers:”>http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/college/career/resource/firstdestinations.html)</p>
<p>No offense to the budding McIntire students, but almost everything at CLAS is harder than McIntire. And econ is not that easy. Having said that, it is easier than at most top universities (no requirement to take econometrics, multivariable calculus, electives are pretty flexible, etc)</p>
<p>“I think econ is the perfect choice for someone who is smart, but not intellectual.”</p>
<p>Dude, wth are you talking about? Are you serious? It is a respected social science. Are you in college yet? Econ is all about the, “let’s pretend” scenarios which produces highly intellectual discussions.</p>
<p>I currently have a BA in econ and will get my MS in commerce this summer, both from UVa. I disagree that most of CLAS is harder than McIntire. Having taken numerous classes in each, the ones at McIntire were both more difficult as well as more time consuming.</p>
<p>On the smart vs. intellectual topic:
I said I think econ is the perfect choice for someone who is smart, but not intellectual. I did not say that Econ isnt also a good choice for people who are intellectual. It can be.</p>
<p>Not stabbing yourself in the neck is a great choice for people who have brown hair. It also happens to be a great choice for people who have black hair.</p>
<p>I consider myself smart but not intellectual. I do not enjoy school or studying. Econ was great for me because it was easy, so easy in fact that I was able to finish college in two years. It is a good option for those who are not intellectual because if you dont want to think about the subject very hard, you dont have to. There are plenty of higher level econ classes that require much deeper thinking. They are not required at UVa.</p>
<p>You doing the M.S. in Commerce explains it all.</p>
<p>Please elaborate.</p>
<p>I’m assuming the MS program has separate classes from the undergraduate program, so he’s saying your program is much harder than the normal one. I can back him up on this – I’m not actually a Comm student so I haven’t taken their core (ICE) classes, but I’ve taken several other upperlevel comm classes and they’ve invariably been my easiest classes so far at UVa.</p>