<p>Is there anyone from CC who is a Math-Econ Joint Major who can shed some light on the advantages/disadvantages of this major compared to others?</p>
<p>If I am equally interested in both Math and Econ, should I do this major, or should I do something like a Math major/Econ minor or Econ major/math minor?</p>
<p>I guess the worry I have is that if I do the Math-Econ Joint Major, I might miss out on too much Econ compared to Econ majors and miss out on too much Math compared to Math majors, and basically be unable to find a job or something.</p>
<p>Math-econ is suited toward students who want to do graduate school in economics. Unlike undergrad economics, which, although having some calculus, is rather wishy washy and filled with toy problems, graduate economics classes are essentially applied math (which is also toy problems, but infinite dimensional toy problems). Economics graduate schools probably prefer math majors to economics majors, since they all do lots of math.</p>
<p>If you like both econ and math, I would say take classes in both areas. If you keep liking both, do the joint major, but if you end up prefering one over the other, switch to the one you like.</p>
<p>Math-econ may be a more marketable degree than pure math, but I’m not positive and it always depends.</p>
<p>I will say this: at UCSD, econ is ridiculously easy compared to math. (Actually, the difference might not be ridiculous, but econ is certainly less rigorous/difficult/mathy. My roommate is an econ major and he jokes all the time how dumb the major is.)</p>
<p>Lastly, it’s tough to know in high school if you’ll like being a math major. Up through lower division college classes, all you learn is computation: an instructor gives you a problem and you follow some algorithm you learned to solve it. Real math involves proving stuff, and this process is different than simple calculation. And real real math involves imagining brand new ideas or approaches and proving those. It’s tough work and it’s why most math majors don’t become math professors.</p>