<p>I'm currently a freshman in college, and I'm strongly considering becoming an economics major, but I'm really afraid that it's just gonna be like becoming a mathematician. I've taken a couple of economics classes in high school, and I really thought that the concepts of it were fascinating, but mathematics has never been a particular talent of mine. I like to think of myself as a relatively bright student, but my abilities in math are thoroughly average. Do you think that someone like me could do well as an economics major and be successful as an economist? With enough effort, naturally. I have a couple other ideas of majors I could do if I don't go with economics, but I'm just wondering if you should be talented at math in order be successful in economics. What do you think? </p>
<p>An economist with a PhD in economics will have taken substantial math courses as an undergraduate in preparation for PhD study in economics. Such math courses will include the frosh/soph math courses that are the same as those taken by physics, engineering, and statistics majors, plus junior/senior level math courses in subjects like real analysis that math majors also take. Statistics course work is also necessary.</p>
<p>Most undergraduate economics majors do not go on to PhD study, so they typically take only frosh calculus and introductory statistics as prerequisites for their junior/senior level economics courses.</p>
Most undergraduate economics majors don’t actually require that much math. They may require 1-2 semesters of calculus, perhaps linear algebra, perhaps differential equations. You will use applied math in your upper-level courses, but the major itself may not require that much advanced math (i.e., math classes taken in the math department).
However, if you want to get an MA or a PhD in economics and be a traditional economist, then YES, math skills are very important. You will need to take more than the required math classes in undergrad (definitely all of the above, and also real analysis, plus maybe a statistics and probability class or two) and you will take more advanced math in graduate school. Economists are quantitative analysts, by and large.
However, you might also choose to parlay your economics major into a non-quant position that uses the more social science/substantive side of economics. You might choose to be a program manager or research associate at a think tank on the more social science side, for example, where you use your understanding of economics to assist PhD-level researchers (in a variety of fields) in their work. You could be a policy analyst where you do more basic or intermediate quant analysis - or none at all.
So my answer would be a yes - I think you should at the very least enjoy math and be able to achieve above-average competency in it if you work hard (although you don’t need to be a natural math genius). That doesn’t mean that you should want to write proofs all day long, but the concepts shouldn’t be beyond your grasp with study. That said, you’ll also find that math becomes a lot more fascinating to some people when they understand the particular uses of the math they’re learning. Math didn’t come alive for me until my senior year in HS, when a Georgia Tech-educated former engineer taught us AP calculus (and AP physics). I started to see the applications of the math I was learning and why it was important in real life - he explained why EVERY concept we learned, even imaginary numbers, were important in real life engineering problems - and the subject became much more interesting. I feel that way about statistics, too; I know the reasoning behind all of the tests I use, and the theoretical becomes easier to grasp because I know what it evolves into. I think it’s like that in economics; you’ll be putting all the math you learn to work.