How are the professors, and recruiting, particularly for finance? What has been your experience overall?
@bernie12 could probably shed some light.
I believe Emory to be a quality school through and through and, as such, would estimate the quality of the Econ program to be high.
For finance in particular, Emory would be very strong. As an indicator of strength in economics generally, you can compare national universities based on faculty publishing: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.usecondept.html.
@lovescookies : It is “good enough” and by that I mean it is at the level (course rigor, co-curricular opps, etc) that you would expect for a standard program at an elite private university. However, like most economics programs, even if you look at elite privates and publics, it isn’t superlatively excellent (like Harvard, Chicago, Yale, Princeton, MIT, and a couple more I think). I would say that it is solid and has great connections and it was recently highlighted in an Emory Report article:
http://news.emory.edu/stories/2018/04/er_emory_fed_partnership/campus.html
Also, schools nor departments do not make recruiting for finance. You have to have certain skills to get positions in finance. Do not think about the school and department (especially if you are going to an elite), but think about how you will build the skills and get the tools to make you marketable to them if/when they do recruit because even if recruiting is fine, that doesn’t mean they will be interested in YOU specifically (remember you are competing against other Emory students and those from other high tiered universities). Often gaining more quantitative skills helps with this. You would want to take and succeed in courses that teach you quantitative skills. The econ. department lays out a potential pathway to pursue this through their own coursework: http://economics.emory.edu/home/undergraduate/career-post-grad/preparing-for-after-graduation.html
The QSS track could even add to your competitiveness:
.
Good coursework that is rigorous plus internships/experiential opportunities will help you, but for goodness sakes do not overbuy into this “I need to be at some sort of target school” narrative. Pursuing a standard econ. major while avoiding more quantitative electives and just getting high grades isn’t sufficient.
@merc81 : No that isn’t as useful because this person is an incoming/prospective undergraduate. So perhaps that gives them an idea of the intern and research related opportunities that exist (indeed many econ. majors apparently do attempt an honors thesis at Emory). But publication record damned sure will not tell about the quality of instruction or level of thinking and math skills demanded from undergraduates. In fact, in many contexts, the increased research reputation may counter efforts to make the undergraduate experience strong. This is not necessarily the case at Emory. The only reason it ends up “average” among selective schools is perhaps because it is far too popular which stretches the resources that can be allocated to undergraduates. This is typical at schools with more standard economics tracks (namely those without unusually high levels of theoretical and mathematical rigor). The relationship with the Atlanta Federal Reserve was actually a fortuitous consequence of the high levels of enrollment.
Opinions differ. In an analysis similar to that cited above, social science researchers Hartley and Robinson concluded that
[quote]
[teaching] the latest discoveries in classes, supervising student theses, and preparing students for graduate school are some of the teaching activities that may be enhanced by faculty research./quote
Further, in the Ideas ranking, the national universities you identified as “superlatively excellent” in economics (Harvard, UC, Yale, Princeton and MIT) place at 1, 4, 9, 3 and 2, respectively, indicating at least a correspondence linking faculty publishing with overall program strength.
@lovescookies Finance is a major in the business school and not part of the Economics major. If you want a position in Finance, Goizueta Business School students do very well in that area. You could double major, but you would have to do all of the requirements of Goizueta Business School as well as those for Economics. I would still believe the best routes to Finance positions at Emory are with a Finance major at Goizueta Business School. You should do your own research.
@merc81 : Yeah, but in most core courses, the “research and latest discoveries” are not really taught. Simply the most recent things to appear in textbooks are (some textbooks are hardly updated). Now, in electives, you have a different story because the instructor, depending on who it is, will often take greater liberties and can go “off script”
*Also, those schools are pretty much elite in EVERYTHING or in most things. There are many components that separate their undergraduate curriculum from that of other places that also have high research output.
Furthermore, if you look at STEM (and maybe other divisions), LACs perform extremely well and send disproportionate amounts to doctoral programs and are known to provide far richer than average curricula to undergraduates. This is because much of the resources go to more deliberate (emphasis on this, because one is otherwise banking on faculty to just feel compelled to take risks with the pedagogy they use or the content they teach when they would really focus on research) attempts to enhance the undergraduate curricula. I am telling you from experience, that nothing particularly special is happening in UG class rooms that is linked to the research apparatus UNLESS the departments have a culture where they decided to integrate that into the curricular design. I will give you an example. Emory’s chemistry department revamps:
http://chemistry.emory.edu/home/undergraduate/overview/index.html
These efforts were almost exclusively driven by lecture track faculty (who are highly awarded at Emory). Emory’s chemistry department ranks in the mid-low 30s for graduate education in USNWR and Emory is NOT elite in everything at undergrad or grad. Most research universities would not go near that style of revamping the curricula because it is too demanding of the efforts of the tenure track faculty who are used to teaching certain content in a certain way. In fact, among top 25 or 30 research universities, Michigan and Duke are the only others to have done something somewhat similar (Emory is stealing from Michigan and various LACs). Duke attempted to do exactly what your source mentions but in the foundation courses in the early 2000s and it was…not good. I wish I could find the damned article, but doing it outside of electives is hard. Research universities, especially medium sized and large ones may just have more electives, so it depends on the division Something like economics is full of core courses usually. It is more likely that departments like political science or history at research intensive schools will have more heavy integration of “new discoveries” by virtue of the fact that they typically require more electives than intro/intermediate core courses. Economics, on the other hand, when programs like HYPM do things differently, they are primarily enhancing the mathematical rigor of the concepts (more frontier and “modern” concepts in something like econ. or many social sciences for that matter, have a quantitative bent), which a huge chunk of students would not be receptive to. Departments that want to have high subscription are probably more likely to avoid this route regardless of whether they could and should.
I suspect that after departmental culture, the level and style of undergraduate instruction may “somewhat” correlate with selectivity.
Also, regardless of them “integrating research”, there is a good amount of literature to support that research track instructors do not typically list “teacher” that highly when considering what contributes to their professional identities. They can teach certain content, but that doesn’t mean it will be delivered and assessed well. Many instructors just “expose” students to things and sort of hand wave, and then say “okay that is just something I am interested in that I felt compelled to tell you but it won’t be tested in anyway”. From my experience, it isn’t enough to just “talk about” new discoveries in a course, especially one delivered in a traditional lecture format. There is what happens versus the actual impact and whether or not students are held accountable or assessed on that content effectively. This seems less likely at many research intensive schools, and inconsistent even at highly ranked ones.
@ljberkow : It may be the most typical route, but some people just straight up don’t want to go to the business school. I suspect it is the strongest route because of the resources beyond the curriculum, but some may not want to “suck it up” and engage that curriculum versus something else they wanna learn or do just for access to those resources. We need to find alternative routes for people who don’t want to go to GBS that actually work or have/gain a successful track record. I suspect that tracks with QTM will grow to eventually be successfully.
@bernie12 ^yeah I’m one of those people. I came to college to learn and if I go to Goizueta, I would just be learning stuff that I would learn on the job/when I go to business school. I like dealing with numbers and I find that Econ and Math complement each other really well.
@bernie12 yeah, I hear sometimes that business majors curriculums aren’t particularly difficult and I still want to learn and be challenged in college.
@lovescookies : Typically finance and accounting are known as more rigorous concentrations in the business school. Based upon what some friends have showed me, it does appear that either have a decent amount of mathematical rigor (as in the courses used calculus and put it in the context of decent level applications). One argument in favor of a strong business school like GBS is that there may be more “quality control” with regards to how high or rigorously the faculty choose to pitch their courses meanwhile ECAS departments may be more inclined to have a hands off approach and so you get a bit of variation in quality between courses and instructors.
Those two may be the best at balancing theoretical/mathematical rigor (found in strong econ. courses) with applications. Even at the foundation level, the business economics course appears more rigorous than conceptually and in terms of the style of testing and demands placed on students than the traditional intro. econ. courses offered at Emory (101 and 112). In Smith’s course, his exams actually require students to read somewhat short magazine articles on economics which is an excellent way to test because being able to understand economics in context and know what you are reading in a primary article or even a magazine on the subject should be a key outcome of learning economics well. Being able to solve stereotypical economics problem types out of a relevant context (whether it be research or practical) is not as useful IMHO. To pass or do well on a standard economics tests, simply recognizing a specific problem type immediately and plugging and chugging is sufficient. There is no need to understand a novel scenario or seek out information in a large passage (article) of text. The latter case is much more realistic in terms of the complexity one will deal with working in these fields or completing graduate studies in them.
I think the best way for non-GBS is maybe econ. math or econ/QTM because QTM is going to have a lot of project and problem set based courses to help you hone math, CS, and data analysis skills. Having courses that make you do a lot and work harder are probably better than those where you mainly just need to absorb and regurgitate content or do relatively simple/canned tasks and problems.
Anything that gets you closer to experiences where you solve more complex or real problems is better training, so I wouldn’t get stuck up in the label and stereotypes of majors more so than think about individual courses and instructors that focus on effectively building certain skills and how that might translate into you earning and then doing an excellent job at an internship. Thing big picture.
@lovescookies GBS is no walk in the park
I am a graduate of the school (many moons ago) so perhaps I'm a bit biased. I just wouldn't be so sure that the Econ major is tougher than GBS. I can tell you that GBS kids today are challenged more than ever and do place very well upon graduation. Research it yourself and speak to people at GBS. GBS isn't just teaching things to help you "on the job" either. That's a fallacy.
@EmoryGoizueta
Aug 2
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Senior Director of the BBA Career Management Center Jane Hershman says she sees rising stress levels of undergraduate business students every year. Read more with https://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/2018/07/31/b-schools-see-a-rise-in-stressed-out-students/
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@ljberkow how is the finance major at GBS? Do you know whether GBS is a semi-target?
@lovescookies that’s probably a good description.
Here is a link to GBS stats and companies hiring grads.
https://goizueta.emory.edu/degree/undergraduate/career_management/placement_statistics/index.html
What I like about GBS is that they track the kids and advise them from their freshman year even if they don’t officially enter until spring of sophomore year or fall of junior year. They have a global focus and work cooperatively. I’m impressed with what they are doing.
Here we go with this target crap again…geez.
Here’s the way I look at it. GBS is more competitive and higher ranked than many of the business schools which are classified as targets. In that respect, if that is the primary focus, maybe look elsewhere. However, the option for Investment Banking is still there and that is evident in the employer list. I would like to think that GBS focuses a bit more on training its students to be top leaders and consultants in the growing global economy.
Anyone interested in an undergrad business degree, should visit https://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/
It’s an excellent resource where you can get a flavor of each school. There are a couple of undergraduate programs who don’t “play ball” with Poets & Quants, but the lion’s share (including Emory) do.