I am a freshman starting my second semester in college, currently undeclared. My strengths I can confidently state are in the Humanities and Social Sciences. However, I have begun to take interest in Economics, something that would have surprised me last semester. I’m interested in the allocation of resources, goods, services, production, stocks, and all the other jargon I don’t understand. However, as I understand it, economics is heavily math oriented, and Mathematics was not my strongest subject in high school. I’m scared if I try economics and calculus, I’ll tank my grades completely. I’m wondering whether my weaknesses in mathematics be something I will be able to overcome with great effort, or if this is just a phase I am going through, as I go through undeclared college limbo.
Well, the only way to find out is to try and see!
Economics in undergrad usually requires about two semesters of calculus and a semester or two of statistics and probability. Then you have to take econometrics, which is calculus-based and an applied version of statistics. Some students who don’t like the pure math you learn in high school do like the more applied math involved in statistics and economics. Others don’t.
Take an introductory economics class (whatever the first class would be for majors - usually it’s micro or macro) and calculus I, if you have never taken it before, next semester. See if you like them! If not they will always count as electives.
@whatisluv , does your university offer both a BA and a BS in Economics? Typically, if a university offers a BA, then that degree requires a couple less math courses, namely the Calculus (with statistics and econometrics still required). Consider a BA in Economics. Only two main downsides I see to the BA without Calc option: (1) you forego the quantitative skills that a prospective employer may be looking for in hiring an Econ major (you would just need to focus any career/job searches on jobs that would not have certain quantitative skill reqs, unless you otherwise supplement for these skills later, and (2) if you ever consider graduate-level course work in Economics, then you will absolutely be expected to have taken or concurrently take Calculus and possibly some other higher forms of math as part of that program - having done it already in undergrad would avoid you having to “catch up” in those requirements in the graduate program.
If your university doesn’t offer a BA that drops the Calculus requirement, then you can always take a lower-division math course to prepare you for the required Calc work, and that lower- or upper-division prep math course may count as university elective credit toward your degree anyway.
Ironically, a lot of Economics as a science can be understood without nearly any mathematical emphasis or inference. In fact, some “schools” of economic thought ascribe to the notion that using mathematics to explain economics models can have appropriate applications, but that over-emphasis on math in Economics has perverted or otherwise distorted the science. If you’re interested in those kinds of things, look into Austrian Economics (Menger, Mises, etc). In fact, Carl Menger’s *Principles/i text, the foundational beginning of the modern Austrian School, intentionally left out any complicated math (really only included basic addition and subtraction) to explain economic concepts, which he does with fluidity and clarity.
wow black or white right?