<p>I want to spend my summmer preparing for my economics upper division class</p>
<p>how should i prepare? buy the textbooks? </p>
<p>or is there notes online I can study?</p>
<p>[UndergradEcon.com</a> - Dedicated to Undergrad Econ Majors](<a href=“http://www.undergradecon.com/index.html]UndergradEcon.com”>http://www.undergradecon.com/index.html)</p>
<p>made by a CC member (not me)</p>
<p>That website is helpful, but I think the OP is asking how he/she can specifically prepare for Stats 100a/b. I am in a similar boat. </p>
<p>I am a proposed Econ major as well. Currently, I am using the beginning of my summer to read up on financial/business books. Once I actually sign up for my classes at Calso (July 1st), I plan to buy my stats and Econ books and read those for the next month and a half. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any suggested reading? :)</p>
<p>i don’t think it’d be very effective to read a stats/econ book for a month and a half. I took econ 101a and econ 100b and they rarely follow the book. For a statistics courses it’d be very difficult to learn much from it without someone to ask questions. Just review your math skills a bit over the summer. the better you are at math the better prepared you will be for upper division and graduate level economics.</p>
<p>I would say go to some bookstores (such as Barnes and Noble) and search for a few good books on the subject. I know they have sections specifically for students and some very specific courses.
And yeah, buy the textbooks and read them. As horrid as that sounds :[</p>
<p>If you are looking to succeed in intermediate micro/macro, then you can look at past professors course websites. Check the syllabus to see which book they normally use and then look up some class notes to help guide your readings. A lot of times professors don’t actually follow the book (noticed this in the case for micro), so class notes may appear a little confusing. Once you start taking more mathematics-based econ courses, it’s going to become more difficult to rely on the book and not an actual professor. </p>
<p>Otherwise, brush up on some math and try to read some economic’s articles. It’s great to know theory and all, but you should at least know what’s going on in the world. You can always try to connect your classwork with recent news in the world. If news isn’t your cup of tea, maybe read some interesting books/papers to see what type of economics interests you.</p>
<p>First and foremost, brush up on your math so you can do any problem set given to you. If you are taking 100A at Berkeley next semester, I would recommend downloading the podcast on itunes U. Use the website provided above and read the UCLA book for economics. Reading anything economics related will help you keep your train of thought so just keep reading.</p>
<p>This is what I have been doing:
- Stats 21 lectures on Youtube
- Reading Peddling Prosperity by Paul Krugman (Very Slanted)
- Math 53 Lectures on Youtube (Multivariable Calculus)
- Econ 100A Podcast
- Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Freidman
- Looking at Mathematical Economics textbooks
- Reading old economics textbooks (The formulas for elasticity are still important)
- Calculus problems and reviewing old notes
- Playing Soccer for fun (Do something fun)
- Reading Scholarly Articles (Read something that interests you)
- Reading Time and The Economist
- Buying textbooks and begin reading them
- Old Problem sets</p>
<p>You can change these up in anyway, but I would recommend listen to the podcasts because you can get a feel for what you will be studying.</p>
<p>how much calculus is actually emphasized in intermediate micro/macro?</p>
<p>@jetforce, midnight</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up. I didn’t realize that professors don’t really follow the textbooks. </p>
<p>I also plan to watch/listen to the podcasts for Stats21/Econ100a. There are ~27 lectures for each course. </p>
<p>Do you guys recommend going over Multivariable? If so, which concepts are covered in 100ab?</p>
<p>@trasferuc</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. I am currently reading “Where Keynes Went Wrong” which is a critique on Keynes’ “General Theory.” I am going to read a couple practical books such as “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and “Millionaire Next Door” as well. </p>
<p>My brother also recommended reading the articles on Reason.com. I was thinking about getting a subscription to the Economist…</p>
<p>Looks hard. I’m glad I’m not an econ major. lol</p>
<p>Get comfortable with multivariable calc and you should be fine with the less mathematics heavy classes.</p>
<p>You can get a subscription for The Economist, but I just have an RSS feed from The Economist that sends me free articles in subjects that I’m interested in. I do a lot of global finance/econ for my internship, so I’ve found this really helpful for my work.</p>