Mathematical Economic Analysis (MTEC) questions

<p>What can you do with this degree?
How is the workload compared to, say, EE?
How big is this major @ rice?
Would a double major in MTEC and EE or ME be possible, or would that be wayy too much?</p>

<p>Here’s a link to the 2007 post graduate survey. Read through the document, and you can find out what students from various majors were doing after graduation: jobs, grad schools, etc. </p>

<p><a href=“http://cspd.rice.edu/emplibrary/Post%20Graduate%20Survey%202007.pdf[/url]”>http://cspd.rice.edu/emplibrary/Post%20Graduate%20Survey%202007.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>It contains information for BA, BS, MS, and PhD degree recipients.</p>

<p>1) Banking, Consulting, Financial Analysis, S&T
2) Depends. The only courses they share are Calc, Multi, and Diff Eq. I’ve known EE’s that probably would dread economics, and vice versa. Most people would say it’s easier, just because obviously MTEC doesnt have physics.
3) Eh, not hugely big, but it’s growing? It seems as a more quantitatively based economics major that people feel would be more appealing to the banks and big energy trading firms in Houston.
4) Depends. If you have a sizeable amount of AP credit, yes, but you would most likely be devoting all your free electives (i.e. ME and EE are very structured degree programs and allow 2-3 free electives outside of engineering work per year. That’s just the way it is with an engineering degree) to economics and stat classes. If no AP credit, it will probably take an insane course load each semester or 5 years to do it. That said, doubling in engineering and economics (sometimes math econ) looks good to employers, and many of these students end up working in IB for Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bear Stearns(jk), etc.</p>

<p>yeah my brother majored in mtec and is now an ibanker</p>

<p>

Econ grad school, ibanking, consulting, anything most BBAs would be doing (except maybe accounting)</p>

<p>

Way easier. From what I’ve seen, most math/econ majors are either really strong in math, and are doing it as a second major, or are decent at math, with more of an economics-based way of thinking. There are very few “tough” classes that MTEC has that ELEC doesn’t. ECON 400 may be the hardest in terms of material, but there are lots of ways to be successful in that class. Most of the MTEC degree is built on electives, so you can take some of the more math-intensive classes (advanced game theory, intro to financial engineering), or some of the less math-intense ones. It’s really well tailored for the individual.</p>

<p>In terms of how long problem sets take, my best approximation is probably about 2-4 hours per set, depending on the class, and how interested you are in the subject. I’m not an ELEC, but I see them working all the time at night in my college commons (although this may be due to less than stellar time management).</p>

<p>

I know economics is the biggest major, but I don’t know how many MTECs there are, compared to pure econ. It’s definitely on the bigger side, but still, it’s far far smaller than anything at a school with 10k+ undergrad students.</p>

<p>

This depends on you. How much AP credit do you have? If you can take care of calculus, chemistry, and physics, you will have a lot of freshman hours done. This means you can work through some of the sophomore engineering material a little early, while taking classes like ECON 211 (and 370), to see if you like it. However, even if you don’t like the theoretical econ (I personally don’t, and I’m MTEC), you may find something like game theory, corporate finance, energy economics, econometrics, or financial engineering, really interesting. </p>

<p>MTEC major is nice, since with an ELEC background, you can take care of some of the elective courses, while fulfilling your Distribution II requirement, even if you you end up not majoring in econ.</p>

<p>BTW, the “math” in math/econ is not very difficult compared to most engineering math, so don’t be turned off by that.</p>

<p>Would MTEC be a good major at Rice for someone who wants to become an actuary?</p>

<p>

I think you would be better off with an applied math degree.</p>