<p>I do not expect a walk in the park, but I am easily overwhelmed and do not want to study economics at UCSB if it is too challenging. I am trying to decide whether to go to UCSB and study economics or go elsewhere to study something like marketing.</p>
<p>Im an Econ major so I can help you out with this. To declare the full major you must first complete the pre-major requirements which are a few Econ classes (your basic micro/macro), some math classes, and a writing class. For the Econ classes (there are 3 total) you must obtain an average of 2.85, which is around the B(3.0)/B-(2.7) range, and the other classes you just need to get a C or better. Now, the Econ class material is not too hard, but the curve is what weeds a lot of student out of the Econ major. Basically it is like this.</p>
<p>Out of 500-600 students in class…
A = no more than 6 percent of students
A- or above = no more than 12 percent of students
B+ or above = no more than 21 percent of students
B or above = no more than 30 percent of students
B- or above = no more than 39 percent of students
C+ or above = no more than 50 percent of students</p>
<p>So basically you can see that you need to be roughly top 35% for these classes, which is tough for a lot of students since it is so competitive. If you study hard though, you should be fine. If you don’t have the GPA for these classes to declare the major you can always retake the class except you won’t get the credit units for it again.</p>
<p>Note: This is just for the basic Econ major, for Econ and Accounting and Econ and Math, there are more pre-reqs, which factor into that gpa.</p>
<p>So what do the bottom 50% of the students - who did not score B- or above - do? Since they could not qualify for Econ major - what are their options.</p>
<p>^^Majoring in something else.</p>
<p>To give you an idea. . .</p>
<p>Just finished Econ 1. Of the 550-600 students in the class, only 4% of the students got an A. </p>
<p>Because the Department of Economics recommended that the quota for A’s for undergrad courses be 6%, the professor in my course had to manually raise another 2% of the students’ grades from a B+ to an A- (lucky, them students).</p>
<p>So, no, it is not a cakewalk.</p>
<p>i just finished econ 1 too. i would have gotten a C, but then he raised our grades so my 76% ended up a B- …its pretty hard. and you need a 2.85 to get to the major. so right now i have a 2.7 even though i was top 39%</p>
<p>Do you think you could have pulled off an A? Maybe through more effort/more studying?</p>
<p>Do you think you could have pulled off an A? Maybe through more effort/more studying?</p>