<p>I have a BA in a subject unrelated to economics, yet I am becoming more and more interested in economics. I do not have any math courses in college (tested out through SAT's) and I only have one introductory econ. class (got A). I have a pretty decent GPA, confidence , and also 800 math GRE scores. Are there any ways that I can try to get myself in an MA in economics, or do I have to take post-BA courses? (I am looking for top-30 institutions)
Moreover, are schools open to doing both a phd and ma at the same time? I know Duke seems to offer the option (on their website, it says students are entitled to a master's while studying for their phd) as long as disciplines are interrelated.
Thanks</p>
<p>Yes, you can pursue an MS without a BS in that field. You can also pursue a PhD without a BS in that field. Many PhD programs will give you an MS for “free” when you pass the comprehensives. This varies by program. </p>
<p>Whether or not you’ll need to take “leveling courses” depends on your program and your transcript, though it seems highly likely that you will. These can often be done at another school before the start your graduate program or done in the first semester of your graduate program. But that entirely depends on your department (e.g. I’m seen schools, particularly top schools, require that the leveling courses be completed at their university).</p>
<p>Graduate Economics is a completely different world than the one you and I live in. I only stick my face against a window and peek in sometimes.</p>
<p>I pulled a small sample of Harvard and MIT’s job candidates, and all were Econ undergrads. So it doesn’t appear that common, at least at those schools.</p>
<p>I would imagine that you’d have a very hard time as a liberal arts major. Graduate economics gets to a very high level of mathematics very quickly.</p>
<p>Like proof based…all of the classes require you take real analysis/Advanced calculus first. So that means you’ll need at an absolute minimum calc1,2,3 and linear algebra before you can take real analysis. (at my school at least)</p>
<p>Well, I have a more basic idea of it now. You should be allowed to move from a social science BA to an Econ MA, however the expectation is that you should have done intermediate macro and micro, as well as calculus and statistics. Other classes in let’s say econometrics or game theory are not expected since in my school, and I imagine it is like that in most schools, even for econ majors, such classes were electives. Indeed, often Econ BA students could avoid most of the hard quantitative econ classes and opt for the more ‘behavior’ related ones, not sure what it means but what I was told.
Statistics at the school that I went one, if in the masters requirements they mean basic statistics were as easy as they could get. Calculus, unless the expectation is years of advanced calculus, to me does not seem like too hard of a course: I actually helped friends though I only had high school calculus education (and really good BC scores). </p>
<p>Do you think they expect the really advanced calculus and statistics? Would Econ BA students however already have taken such courses (in my school, econ BA/S, only 9 courses, 4 of them electives, 4 of them intro/intermediate macro/micro, do not remember the other course, they also had math requirements i did not know of).</p>
<p>Moreover, I slept (not literally) through the intro Economic course, and I did extremely well, would intermediate get that much impossibly harder?</p>