Economics

<p>Anybody who majored or is majoring in economics, can you give me info? How hard is it? Does it get boring? Can you stand out? </p>

<p>I am very good at math, biology, and economics. I just can't decide between biomedical engineering and econ. I do not want to work in a lab when I grow up, but I want to be challenged and interested with what I do.</p>

<p>I'll probably go to madison or minnesota, both have good econ and engineering.</p>

<p>I’m planning to major in economics and math, and although I haven’t even taken a single econ course yet (my school never offered any), lately I’ve been reading some of my dad’s textbooks on microeconomics (my dad happens to be an economist…go figure!).</p>

<p>I find the stuff pretty interesting and since the econ major isn’t terribly difficult by itself, I figured I’d stick in a math major as well.</p>

<p>As to whether you should major in biomedical engineering or econ, I think it largely depends on whether you plan to work straight out of college. If you plan to, it may be more ideal to study biomed since it has better job prospects.</p>

<p>If you plan to go to graduate school for economics, your undergrad exposure to economics would be important, but not as important as your mathematics education. So if you’re thinking about grad school, you’ll need to take math courses until it hurts.</p>

<p>i agree. grad school for econ is all math and getting in will be determined from your math background, so make sure you take advantage of your math department.</p>

<p>i took AP Econ (macro soph year & micro junior year) and while they do apply to money, trends, scarcity, production, etc., it can be applied to SO much more. i’ve heard stories about people using econ to determine who they will marry, what city to live in the next x amount of years, or which dog breed to raise. it can be skewed in so many ways because it is extremely, extremely flexible. at the ivies, it is one of the most popular majors because it can be applied to SO many things.</p>

<p>learning the basics, however, i found really difficult. for some reason i was very slow on picking up basic concepts and if you don’t remember basic concepts, it gets rough because it all builds on one another, like languages. hoped this helped.</p>

<p>Economics is much more flexible in both application and theory, while biomedical engineering is very straightforward. If you don’t have a planned future, try economics.</p>

<p>Thanks guys. Would a double major in economics and finance or economics and business be a good idea if you wanted a challenge? Also, like I said earlier, is it hard to stand out in order to become one of the higher paid econmists?</p>

<p>I think a double major in economics and finance and/or business would be a little redundant. An econ-math or a finance-math double major would probably do you better.</p>

<p>Also, to be an economist you have to have a masters at the very least; most would argue you can’t really be considered an economist unless you have a PhD.</p>

<p>In order to “stand out,” you have to excel in your math classes, get involved in research, and have some good connections. Minnesota and UW Madison have outstanding econ departments, so that last part shouldn’t be too difficult to attain.</p>

<p>So I guess the point is that doing well as an econ major and becoming an economist are two drastically different things. Judging from all the threads you’ve created, it looks like you have a diverse set of interests. My suggestion is take a lot of different classes first semester, then decide what you want to do.</p>

<p>How many years does it take to get a PHD in economics?</p>

<p>It depends, but on average, around five.</p>

<p>Thanks a lot. I do not think it will be worth around 10 years in college to study a kind of boring subject. But if you do get a PHD, what will your salary look like? Also, what kind of company would hire you and what would be your job?</p>

<p>The truth is most PhDs in econ work as economists in an academic setting or find jobs as policy analysts. Based on what you just said, it might be better to get a masters in mathematical/computational finance and then work as a quantitative analyst. Salaries vary, but you’ll probably make much more quicker than you would by getting a PhD in econ.</p>

<p>So if you plan on getting a masters in quantitative finance, forget about econ. Just major in math and get familiar with C++.</p>

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<p>I think that very few people are successful in any decent Ph.D. program that’s in a field that don’t absolutely love.</p>

<p>Thanks, I like economics, but from what you guys have said, I think I’m better off with engineering. I took IB econ last year and liked it. I was already planning to do biomedical engineering, but I was just exploring other options. </p>

<p>Any economists here who can tell me what there reason for studying economics was?</p>