I am an international student accepted RD with economics as my likely major. I was wondering the availability of jobs or graduate school after Washington University. How strong/well-known is the Economics Program at Wash U in St. Louis?
And what are other strong/well-known programs there?
Help will be greatly appreciated!
Hi there. I’m almost in the same situation as you are right now: international student, just accepted to WashU and also looking for something like econ and plus maybe poli sci. Right now, I’m in the process of researching but I found several useful threads about this on CC. The fragment I’m gonna show you is from the thread about WashU vs Amherst( just so that you don’t get confused by the content) but it is relevant to your problem since you’re planning to go econ. Just search on CC and you’ll definitely find what you need. Hope this helps. Oh, and btw, congratulations!!!
"This is probably going to be long-winded but I hope it helps you (and other potential Econ and/or Poli Sci majors) a bit. I plan to major in both Econ and Poli Sci and have taken a few courses in each department. Wash U has incredible departments in both. If you want to go to grad school in the future, it helps to go to a University that has grad programs already; which sounds somewhat contradictory, but it it allows the school to have more resources and professors, and thus provide you with lots of opportunities you wouldn’t necessarily have at a smaller school like Amherst. Not that you couldn’t do undergrad research at Amherst (I’m sure you can pretty easily), but it’s guaranteed that the opportunities will be vastly more limited. Wash U, also, actively encourages undergrad research, and I’m 100% sure that you’d find more opportunities for it here in every sense of the term. Amherst probably has like 10 professors in each department; to me, at least, that would get old rather quickly. Take my opinion for what it’s worth - I actively avoided small LACs - because it is an opinion, but you should at least be aware how various opportunities will manifest on a day to day basis.
Amherst will clearly have the advantage of smaller classes, but I’m pretty sure that advantage will be limited to freshman/sophomore years. The upper-level courses at Wash U in both of the departments you are considering are quite small – think fewer than 15 kids in most (especially econ, but largely true for poli sci). The professors that I’ve encountered (ones I’ve taken classes from, and others that I will in the future) are exceedingly well-credentialed, very helpful, and generally just want you to do well. You should browse the faculty listings on the various dept websites to get an idea of who they are, where they come from, and what their specific interests are.
There’s a great major here called Political Economy. It’s a very theoretical-based major that really studies the interplay of economics in politics and public policy. I probably won’t do it just because it is very theory-based, but if that’s what you are looking for, then it’s probably right up your alley. There’s some sort of senior seminar that’s supposed to be really cool, but I haven’t looked too much into it at this point. Anyway, you can find info about the major and those courses. The PoliEcon major also has its own eponymous research center, the Center for Political Economy. Doug North is a pretty major figure in the Econ department here (1990s nobel prize winner in econ - he founded that center, as well as the New Institutional Social Sciences Center, which was the basis for his nobel.
Political Economy | Washington University in St. Louis
Center in Political Economy
http://cniss.wustl.edu/
Anyway, for Poli Sci strictly, Wash U is especially strong in american politics, comparative politics, and political methodology. It certainly one of the largest majors here in terms of # faculty and # courses. Gotta be within the top 5 most popular Art Sci majors. This may or may not interest you considering you seem more Econ focused, but Wash U has really built up these quasi-study abroad programs in Washington DC for a semester where you get an internship for a governmental agency, think tank, policy group, NGO, etc. The Brookings Institution has a really close network with Wash U which could come in handy if you plan your 4 years out right and really know how to search out these opportunities.
For Econ strictly, there are several concentrations you can pursue within the larger major itself. Although Wash U isn’t exactly what I consider a large school (larger than Amherst -yes, but strictly speaking it isn’t really huge), having the ability to really hone your interests is nice. You may or may not have the same opportunity at Amherst. Off the top of my head, you can concentrate in Econometrics (one of the more popular), public policy, theory, finance, and industrial org. I know there are a couple more but I’m feeling a bit too lazy to search them out. As you probably know, you have free reign to take classes in the B-school here (read: any finance class you want), which is at least tangentially beneficial for most econ majors.
This is a listing of all the research centers in the Econ department: Research Centers | Department of Economics
For both Poli Sci and Econ, once you get passed each’s two intro level courses (American Politics and International Politics, and Micro and Macro), you really have a huge array of courses and specialties available. Those intro level courses will of course be much larger than at Amherst, but they are so basic and you take them freshman year so it really doesn’t matter in the long run. For what it’s worth I actually loved my International Politics class despite the large size - professor was awesome. There are seriously over 100 classes offered in the Poli Sci department alone here.
A not insignificant amount of people here double major between Econ and Poli Sci. The two departments collaborate a lot. I found that it generally makes life a lot easier and the academic experience more worthwhile - and will become even more so in the upper years. You mentioned wanting to go to grad school after college, and I can definitely tell you that whether you want to go into econ specifically, or something related like law school or public policy, you’ll be more than fine from Wash U regarding caliber of grad school."
Thank you so much! By the way, did you get scholarship or financial aid?
If you plan to go to grad school in economics and related fields (finance, marketing, etc), both WashU and Amherst will prepare you very well. Which one is better? It depends on many factors. Even though OlegVu obviously did quite a bit of research on both schools, I believe one’s decision should incorporate more than what their school websites say about them.
@153fish 153 fish! The esteemed British scholar Richard Bauckham wrote a great essay exploring that theme/motif. Check it out.
well, if you look closely at my reply you’ll see that it’s not exactly my opinion
@OlegVu are you going to WashU?
not anymore. I got into Princeton. Guess I’m going there