<p>How's the Economics program? Is it good?
Do many people make it into business jobs?
Has Occidental looked into offering an Accounting concentration, major, or minor?
How is career placement? Internship opportunities? Where are most graduates working now?</p>
<p>Hi jacefromLA. I’m an economics major at Oxy, so I think I can be a pretty good judge of the program. I just won’t be able to give you solid figures.</p>
<p>Q: How’s the Economics program? Is it good?</p>
<p>The Economics department has some brilliant and very qualified professors. And not only are Oxy’s economics professors strong in their field, but most are also very effective teachers and lecturers. Oxy isn’t some big university where the economics professor rolls in 5 minutes late to a stadium of 300+ students playing Angry Birds–rather the economics program is filled with passionate professors who are happy to teach and eager students who are ready to learn.</p>
<p>What’s also quite nice is that because of the relatively small class sizes, students can and are often required to interact directly with the professors. But this is true pretty much everywhere at Oxy, both inside and outside the Economics department.</p>
<p>So yeah, it’s pretty good.</p>
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<p>Q: Do many people make it into business jobs?</p>
<p>Sorry, but I have no idea what the statistics are for Oxy’s Econ graduates entering the job market. </p>
<p>So instead I’m going to answer your question with another two questions: 1) What type of job do you think you want when you graduate college? 2) Are you looking to get into accounting, finance, investment banking or are you more interesting in becoming and entrepreneur and running your own business? As a student of economics, I have only really begun to think about those questions. While I haven’t finished the economics major yet, what I am learning so far seems to be a general education in economics supplemented with some more specific and focused higher level courses (Game Theory, International Economics, Environmental Economics, etc).</p>
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<p>Q: Has Occidental looked into offering an Accounting concentration, major, or minor?</p>
<p>Again, I am a lowly student and I have no idea what is being discussed behind closed doors. I am however going to go ahead and guess that there is very little interest in an Accounting concentration/major/minor. There is however an Accounting course (ECON 233) in the course catalog.</p>
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<p>Q: How is career placement? Internship opportunities? Where are most graduates working now? </p>
<p>Like before I don’t have figures, but in a very informal survey of my friends who were economics majors and have since graduated, many are gainfully employed in the tech, banking and entertainment industries. There’s a lot one can do with an economics degree.</p>
<p>Regarding internships, Oxy doesn’t exactly forced them upon its students or try to shove them down our throats, but it seems as if options are available and fairly plentiful. In the past, the head of the economics department has used a mailing list to notify declared economics majors of relevant internships.</p>
<p>No matter where you go to college, you’re going to have to work for the opportunities you want. So even if Oxy doesn’t explicitly offer something, it doesn’t mean that it’s not available to you.</p>
<p>I hope some, if not most of this was helpful. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.</p>
<p>Hi Dingo8urbaby:</p>
<p>Thanks for answering questions about econ. I have a few to ask. What’s the nature of the workload like in econ in terms of quality and quantity? In other words, is the emphasis more on problem sets or more on writing papers? Is econ pretty quantitative at Occidental? How heavy is the workload and how hard is the grading? Do you enjoy the class discussions? Thanks!</p>
<p>I’m mostly interested in getting a job at a big company, I’m interested in one of the film or tv companies there. The answer to your second question is I’m looking more into accounting.</p>
<p>Hey granolabowl and jacefromLA, sorry for the delay. I’ve taken time to think about your questions and comments, so I hope this helps.</p>
<p>Q: What’s the nature of the workload like in econ in terms of quality and quantity? In other words, is the emphasis more on problem sets or more on writing papers?</p>
<p>I’m not quite sure what you’re used to, so my opinion on this may vary from what you might be used to, however I’ve found the work load to be challenging but manageable. I would say the quality of the work assigned is pretty high, Economics professors at Oxy write their own problem sets so they’re tailor made to the class material. Every economics class that I have taken at Oxy has had some problem sets and about half of the ones that I have taken have a writing component. There is also a writing requirement for the Economics department which is satisfied once we complete Econometrics.</p>
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<p>Q:Is econ pretty quantitative at Occidental?</p>
<p>Not so much in the intro level classes, but once you advance through the department more math and “quantitative” economics begins to appear. They like to teach us the theory first, but we are still working with some numbers on our problem sets.</p>
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<p>Q: How heavy is the workload and how hard is the grading?</p>
<p>Again, the work is manageable in the beginning and later on in our careers as Economics students it gets gradually more difficult. I did not have an issue transitioning from high school to here in terms of workload. And the grading, I would say it’s pretty fair. Keep in mind though that at Oxy, Economics students have on average lower GPAs than Oxy students pursuing other majors. Though that’s not because we’re lazy or bad students, it’s just a more challenging discipline.</p>
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<p>Q: Do you enjoy the class discussions? </p>
<p>Yes. They’re frequent and constructive.</p>
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<p>jacefromLA, I too and looking for something corporate. I have a friend who graduated as an Economics major and works for Warner Brothers, and I know she’s not the only one to make it into the entertainment industry. If however you have your heart set on hard-core accounting, I think you will be disappointed.</p>
<p>Hi TheDingo8urbaby:</p>
<p>Thanks so much for your great reply! If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of jobs did your friend at Warners and your other friends in the entertainment industry get?</p>
<p>Granolabowl, I don’t mind your asking at all–I just don’t know where exactly she was first placed. I believe somewhere in the TV division and after about 2 years has transitioned over to movies–I think. I know of another Economics major who graduated into an internship at the Warner Music Group. And then I have one more friend who isn’t an Economics major (but did take one Economics class) who currently holds an internship at FunnyorDie.com. So if you work hard you’ll probably find something you like, but it also helps to be situated in LA within close proximity of “the industry.”</p>
<p>Thanks TheDingo8urbaby for taking the time to answer questions. It’s really helpful; Occidental sounds like a wonderful college!</p>