<p>I want to get a liberal arts degree in economics at a large state university to supplement my strategic communications degree. Would I have to do a ton of math to get this degree. I'm more interested in the theory of economics, like social economics. Would I need a ton of math to do that?</p>
<p>no, but liberal arts econ < business econ.</p>
<p>i know i want it as a supplement. I can’t do all of the requirements for business and communications. So can you tell me if liberal arts econ requires a ton of math.</p>
<p>Oh, dear. Are you looking at the colleges’ own info about econ requirements and required courses? It’ll be on their web sites. Are you looking at any dept info that describes their emphasis? Geez. We all keep pointing you to this primary research.</p>
<p>Why don’t you try listing some of the courses that are required for the degree, and people here can tell you what level of math is needed for those classes?</p>
<p>It’s rather difficult (and inefficient) to do it the other way around.</p>
<p>The designated WI Economics classes change from semester to semester. Typically, the Department of Economics offers two WI Economics courses each semester. Econ 4311: Labor Economics, Econ 4315: Public Economics and Econ 4360: Economic Development are often offered as WI classes.</p>
<p>Check the pre-reqs for those classes. If they require a math class then you will know what type of math is expected in those classes. If they don’t require anything more than Macro or Micro Econ, then I wouldn’t expect a lot of math.</p>
<p>At face value, those classes don’t sound too math intensive. Labor Economics might get into a little math, but in all likelihood probably not something beyond algebra or business level calc.</p>
<p>so would microeconomics and macroeconmics not require much math? I thought those required the most math</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about it. I would be worried about your knowledge of statistics in your econometrics courses. That is probably the hardest subject in an economics program.</p>
<p>Just curious what percentage of an econ major is math and what percentage is everything else</p>
<p>If you’re attending a college with a high admissions rate, their economics program will likely be very watered down and include basic algebra and maybe some elementary calculus. I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>S_A isn’t wrong in my experience. Stats is somewhat underrated though.</p>
<p>It’ll probably be mizzou. So idk how hard the math will be. But do you think it is a good supplement? I would only do it to become more marketable. I want to major in strategic communications for advertising in the best journalism school in the country. Would econ be a good supplement for that field?</p>
<p>Undergraduate economics doesn’t generally equip you with any hard skills that you can point to a recruiter and say “this will add to your bottom line.” What economics offers you is intuition about decisions that individuals, firms, governments, and other economic agents make in competitive and imperfect markets. There are really fascinating courses you can take in industrial organization where you can apply game theory and other tools to understand how firms conduct business in imperfect markets. There are classes where you can learn how the change in the price of a good affects the quantity demanded. You’ll learn about cost/benefit analysis and opportunity cost. All of these ideas are used in the business world at an intuitive and rudimentary quantitative level. Economists model these actions and systems with powerful mathematics; the undergraduate educations in economics will expect you to be very proficient in pre-calculus algebra and the tools of basic calculus (derivatives, integrals, and maybe even partial derivatives and Lagrange multipliers if you take a course in intermediate microeconomic analysis). </p>
<p>Bottom line: I think it’s a fascinating field of study. Whether or not it will help you advance your career goals is dubious. Communications majors don’t typically have good career prospects.</p>
<p>I thought Calc 1 was the standard math requirement for Econ basically everywhere except maybe MIT. I think Berkeley also requires Calc 2. In addition, several Berkeley Econ classes require Multivariable Calculus and/or Linear Algebra plus Differential Equations. Those would be considered optional substitutions for math-heavy students.</p>