<p>I'm a junior looking at colleges and I had a couple questions about the Georgetown Economics department.</p>
<p>1) How difficult are economics classes at Georgetown (grade distribution, difficulty of material, etc.)
2) What do most economics majors go into: business, politics, law?
3) How would the department compare to those at other schools?
4) Overall, would you recommend Georgetown for a student looking to major in economics or something similar?</p>
<p>Does anyone have some information on this?</p>
<p>Gtown Econ is spilt into 2 sections, SFS International Economics and International Political Economy, and then the regular College Econ major. All of them overlap in classes a great deal, but then again, if you are in the SFS you will be taking 4 econ classes anyway. All econ classes are curved, and its something like 10% get A’s, 15% get a-s, 50% get some form of B, etc. This isn;t too bad at the beginning level, as you are almost guaranteed a B if you are paying any attention in class, but makes getting an A tricky (in my microecon class to get an A you needed a 94 average I think). The classes get a lot harder as you go up and competition for A’s becomes much more intense; the econ requirement is known for killing GPA’s for SFS students and probably college students as well. The actual material itself is pretty much the same as everywhere, for example, you will read Krugman as everyone else does; as you go up, the knowledge of math you need goes up exponentially.</p>
<p>Most econ majors from the SFS probably go into some form of consulting or financial work and might kick the tires on law school, but that pretty much describes everyone in the SFS. I’m not sure about the College, but it is probably similar. </p>
<p>It’s pretty good, its not known like UChicago’s program, but then again everyone seems to think that undergrad econ is extremely different there, when all they actually have is the memory of Milton Friedman and his acolytes, who are despised by a good 80% of the professors and students there as well as famous economists who teach in their grad school. Overall, at the undergrad level, and while I could be wrong, the econ you are going to learn at gtown isnt too different from anywhere else, although we dont have too many big names in the econ department, Vreeland is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. You are going to need to know a good amount of math though if you are serious about an econ major though, if you want the colleges, I’d suggest a math minor. </p>
<p>Personally, although I’m biased, I’d recommend Gtown for pretty much any department, but the economics department, particularly in the SFS, can open quite a lot of doors, especially since from what I can tell from the GUUGLE page (Georgetown Undergrads who like Econ) the professors remain involved with undergrads and post a lot about research opportunities. Furthermore, you would be in DC, and there are internships everywhere.</p>
<p>Thank you for the response! </p>
<p>When you said the amount of math increases exponentially, how much math is required for someone isn’t interested in attending grad school?</p>
<p>I’m not sure, but I would say a pretty fair amount from what I have heard</p>
<p>Senior Math/Econ in the COL here, research/PhD program bound (eventually). Currently TA’d many micro classes, writing a thesis, etc.</p>
<p>Unlike what hotair said, the curve is far more generous, too generous in my opinion. 40% A’s and A-'s, 50% B’s, and the rest C’s and below. Also there’s a political economy major which is really just the econ major but with slightly different requirements.</p>
<p>The principles class is very hit or miss depending on your professor and, perhaps more importantly, your TA. The intermediate micro classes is by far the hardest class, but (with some exceptions) the advanced classes are actually much easier (given that you understand the intermediate micro class).</p>
<p>It’s an extremely low-key major. For the upper-level classes you could expect 4 problem sets and 1-2 midterms and a final for the entire year. My impression is that compared to other similarly ranked colleges the econ program here is less rigorous.</p>
<p>Most people end up in consulting and finance. A select few will do research.</p>
<p>Regards to the math: If aspiring for a graduate program, major in math. Otherwise, more math certainly helps (even if Calc I is the only real prerequisite) since it builds your abstract thinking skills.</p>
<p>Certainly the econ program lags far behind in rankings compared to other highly ranked universities. However, we had a few major hires recently (John Rust, a major econometrician and Martin Ravillion from the World Bank) and ever since the department eased up on the grading curve, they’ve had more students and therefore more money. So it seems to be getting a lot better. We’ve got a star duo of labor economists (Albrecht and Vroman) and a highly cited macroeconomist (Huggett) as well as a well-known environmental economists (Levinson) and many people working in development economics (Genicot, Jack, Mayda).</p>
<p>The benefit of a not-as-great program is you get to be a big fish in a small pond, so to speak. Of course, everyone knows you’re from a small pond.</p>
<p>MathEcon -
My son’s deciding between Georgetown and Vanderbilt. Do you know anything about Vanderbilt’s Econ program to compare the two? He’s much more likely to follow the finance/consulting path than a PhD program.</p>
<p>I can’t speak to Vanderbilt, but nearly all the economics majors I know are going to finance and consulting.</p>
<p>This might be helpful:</p>
<p><a href=“Cawley Career Education Center | Georgetown University”>Cawley Career Education Center | Georgetown University;
<p>Go to page 5 for the economics majors. Wish I could find last year’s.</p>
<p>I would say there are very few people at georgetown who major in economics because they truly love the subject and intend to pursue it at the graduate level – most do it because it’s the narrowest path to those vaunted consulting/banking jobs.</p>
<p>I think we have a very good economic development program, though – that’s my concentration. applied courses suck, though (by and large).</p>