Swarthmore Economics vs. Other Top Tier Economics Programs

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
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<p>@ Apollue and Anybody else that knows something about the Honors Program.</p>

<p>Thanks, you mentioned some interesting points about the Honors program and the upsides of a bigger economics program.</p>

<p>About the honors program…
I found other schools boasting similar programs in which students partake in seminars and honors thesis/papers.
Could you explain the particulars of Swarthmore’s honors program in more detail?</p>

<p>And would the smaller, more personal size of classes be more advantageous than having a greater variety of classes?</p>

<p>Also, I noticed that much of economics (academic economics) is changing today to a much more empirical, quant-based science. A lot of programs in America are factoring out the traditional rigamarole in reading Primary Literature (wealth of nations…keynes…friedman) and studying history. What is Swarthmore Economics Department’s particular stance on this?</p>

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<p>Everyone who has read an op-ed by krugman knows that he’s politically charged, but to assert that a Nobel laureate in economics and a Princeton reasearch professor don’t write a very effective intro to economics is almost as ridiculous as saying that a Nobel laureate in economics is not an economist. If one wants to pursue a Ph.D in economics, the only thing he or she should be worried about is placement rates, where swarthmore does very well. You’ll learn your conservative or liberal economics there.</p>

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<p>By ‘there’, I mean grad school. Excuse my ambiguity.</p>

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<p>lienad60,
Swarthmore’s Honors Program is quite different from others you may have read about. About 1/3 of the student body participates. It is competitive to be admitted to the Honors Program, more competitive in some departments than others. You have an Honors major and an Honors minor. You take three 2 credit seminars in your Honors major and one 2 credit seminar in your Honors minor. The 2 credit seminars are like taking two courses, so for instance if you took two of them one semester junior year, you’d only be taking 2 courses that semester. (You are admitted to the program beginning your junior year.)</p>

<p>The seminars are generally capped at 12 students, sometimes less. The real difference is that at the end of senior year, Swarthmore invites professors from all over the country who are expert in the field the Honors students have been studying, to come to Swarthmore’s campus to give oral final exams to the Honors students. The students have written final papers for the courses and the outside professors examine the students based on what they have written as well as anything else the professor wants to include. These professors decide on the content of the exam, not the Swarthmore professors. It has been described as very similar to the oral defense of a Ph.D. thesis. (I have a son who went through this and is now a Ph.D candidate, who is in the 5th year of his Ph.D. program) It is supposed to be incredibly grueling but incredibly rewarding. The Honors students really bond during that last week when the rest of their fellow seniors are done with exams. The outside professors, the experts, decide whether the student will graduate with honors, high honors, or highest honors.</p>

<p>As for your question about smaller classes being advantageous vs. class variety, that’s up to the individual. Just remember that while it’s nice to have a huge variety of classes, you can only take 4 at a time. :)</p>

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<p>As a recent alumnus of the college, having majored in economics and math and thinking about going to grad school, my experience should be worthwhile here.</p>

<p>As far as I can tell, only consider Swarthmore if you like the small college environment and the vibe of “thinking about classes all the time.” If that’s your thing, there are few other colleges (other than the technical schools like MIT, CalTech, etc.) wherein this environment thrives. It’s an exciting and wonderful place to be, but there are other places that may offer a more flexible education when it comes to economics preparation.</p>

<p>In terms of straight-up preparation for grad school, Swarthmore students seem to not do as well as their peers from top institutions with good graduate departments (and accordingly famous professors), in so far as their ability to get admitted straight out of undergrad. Although we send a lot of kids to good grad schools, that usually only happens after they’ve spent some time doing research post-Swarthmore. [I’m doing this now and it’s great!] This is fine, and probably a good way to evaluate options before proceeding to grad school (your opinion of grad school as an option may evolve over your undergraduate years, and getting an outside perspective before you proceed to PhD programs is usually beneficial), but note that our peers at Princeton, Harvard, or Columbia may find themselves with slightly more options. </p>

<p>However, it seems that Swarthmore’s econometrics tracks is one of the best available at undergraduate institutions, perhaps only rivaled by Chicago’s or maybe MIT’s. That’s not to say that motivated students at other institutions can’t get the kind of econometrics background that Swatties get, but it is to say that <em>all</em> motivated Swatties interested in econometrics in economics come out with a comprehensive knowledge of econometrics exceeded by students of few other institutions (including many Ivies and our peer LACs). </p>

<p>Another note worth making is that Swat’s honors econ courses are not nearly as rigorous as the the math courses that econ grad schools demand of their applicants. Given this, and also given how data-intensive empirical research is these days, the PhD bound student will probably find herself best off graduating Swat (or any other institution) with a major in mathematics, physics, or engineering, a few of courses in computer science, and courses in basic microeconomics and advanced econometrics. This is because <em>real</em> microeconomics (and macro for that matter) tends to be mathematically sophisticated, so a serious student will likely be better served building their quantitative toolkit than learning elementary microeconomics. The ability to write rigorous proofs will be of much more use than elementary first-year graduate microeconomics (the level taught in honors micro). In this way, Swarthmore isn’t so good because non-honors courses in the economics department aren’t serious enough for the aspiring graduate student, so a student nearly must do honors to get access to the good classes, meaning there’s less time for other important studies. </p>

<p>In summary, I’m very happy to have graduated from Swarthmore. The experience was intense (much more intense than the experiences of <em>nearly all</em> of the recent graduates of other institutions I know, except for those at Chicago and MIT), but I learned a great deal. </p>

<p>For the best preparation in economics, I say head to Chicago, Swat, or any of the top technical institutions and major in something quantitative. These days economics is relatively interdisciplinary in terms of modeling and the data analytics, so any degree in something quantitative along with econometrics/statistics, and one or two micro classes will prepare a student well for graduate study. [Also take note that most students in graduate programs these days have masters degrees.]</p>

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<p>Oh, but among the schools you mentioned, if you like the environment of Swat, you’ll like Chicago’s. Some of my friends took courses at Penn, and they reported them to be much easier than those at Swat (also the vibes are <em>totally</em> different –– if Penn is your thing, then Swat, and Chicago for that matter –– are likely to <em>not</em> be your thing). Berkeley is huge and impersonal, though you’ll have access to a great education; the process will just be more difficult because of the size and “red tape.” </p>

<p>If you can take courses in Cornell’s engin school, then that might be all right. It looks like your best two “choices” are Chicago and Swarthmore <em>if</em> Swarthmore is your vibe. All of them are “good” schools, but Chicago and Swarthmore seem to have the most “serious” or “intense” vibes, and, from what I can tell, some of the best prep for econ. They’ll also tend to be the hardest, however.</p>

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<p>Just read Krugman’s columns in the NYT and tell me this guy is not a half-crazed ideologue. Any semi-objective person would acknowledge that.</p>

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<p>Coase, I am glad you gave the entire quote. Because I took it from an article where the author pointed out that Krugman’s claim of extending unemployment benefits also reduces unemployment is actually contradicted in his own textbook:</p>

<p>“Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries”</p>

<p>The same author goes on to say the following:</p>

<p>“It seems Krugman himself lives in two different universes–the universe of the academic economist and the universe of the bitter partisan columnist. Or maybe this is like that episode of “Star Trek” in which crewmen from the Enterprise switched places with their counterparts from a universe in which everyone was the same, only evil.”</p>

<p>My question is what does he teach his students: the diatribe from his columns or the Republican stuff he wrote in his textbook many years ago.</p>

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<p>^^Shouldn’t you pursue that on the Princeton board?</p>

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<p>^ Yeah, seriously –– why is this happening here?</p>

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<p>Fhimas-A very informative and excellent overview. I forwarded it to my D who is considering a mathematics major at Swat.</p>

<p>Parent57-Your efforts to engage on your Fox talking points is not appropriate on this site and is discouraged overall by cc following the elimination of the Parent Cafe forum. There are multiple outside venues for challenging Krugman’s views, but this is not one of them. Couching the inquiry in terms of what he is teaching his students is a transparent effort to pretend it is not politically based. At any rate, he teaches no classes at Swat.</p>

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<p>Counsel, I was actually responding to the 5th or 6th post in this thread. That poster said: </p>

<p>“I’m a current econ major at Swarthmore and I wholeheartedly agree with what BBGunt said. Swarthmore’s very liberal in economic philosophy. Our intro textbook is Paul Krugman’s textbook and the Macro prof (who is an amazing teacher) spends a little time every class making jabs at conservative economists. So if you’re more in the UChicago/ freshwater school of economics, you might not be happy here. Read some of Krugman’s op-eds in the NYTimes to see if you’ll fit with liberal economic thought.”</p>

<p>I was agreeing with this poster and then a subsequent poster disagreed with my observations of Krugman, so I posted again explaining my position. I agree that it is getting too political, hence this will be my last post on this topic.</p>

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<p>That cited poster is so wrong. Everyone (serious) knows that intermediate macro isn’t “real,” in that macroeconomics is about modeling and econometrics, not oversimplifying graphs. Though the poster is right in that the current professor is pretty liberal, a serious student shouldn’t care. The only people who seem to care are are poli-sci students are naive economics students –– political inclinations only (ought to) matter to economists in so far as the parameters they’ll accept as reasonable for various models, or the preconceptions they might have about how some process is determined. Anything “much beyond” that is just usual pontification by someone who happens to be an economist.</p>

<p>So if you tend to be conservative economically, you need not be discouraged by Swarthmore’s political environment, though Chicago may be nicer for that if you really care. However, Chicago doesn’t have the small school atmosphere, etc., that Swat has.</p>

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<p>D selected Swat over Chicago but I don’t think it was connected to the point of views espoused by the respective programs. I think perhaps she wanted a little more separation from her sister who is at Northwestern.</p>

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<p>Regarding Krugman…
Say what you will about his op-eds, they’re usually quite crass and partisan. But to claim that he’s ‘not an economist’ is downright foolish - he won the John Bates Clark Medal and Nobel Prize with the support of virtually every academic out there for his contributions to trade theory - which have virtually nothing at all to do with his views on American politics. </p>

<p>I don’t like Mankiw supporting Romney, but he’s a great economist and you’d be a fool to deny it. Same thing applies to Krugman.</p>

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<p>Apollue, I know I promised not to post here again on this subject, but I would remind you that Yasser Arafat also won a Nobel Prize.</p>

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<p>Howard Zinn was a good historian; Howard Zinn was also part of the anarchist left, i.e. the far left. Krugman is not even on the same spectrum as him.</p>

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<p>Well, I suppose you can’t consider Krugman an anarchist, maybe a socialist which puts him to the left of just about every left-wing politician in our govt. Oh-Oh, this is getting too political.</p>

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<p>Ah, you begrudgingly concede Krugman is not an anarchist. How generous. (straw man) However, you label him as a far left socialist as if the labels themselves settle the issue of policy suitability. Such simplistic labeling is consistent with the bumper sticker mentality permeating the right. You in finance didn’t object to the socialization of the banking/insurance losses on the backs of the taxpayers, but now that you’ve been paid you want to be left alone to make your profits, and you characterize any effort at regulation or accountability as socialist intervention in the free market. Sweet!</p>

<p>Someone, like Krugman, who demands accountability and fair play, who speaks out against corporate and economic malfeasance and who advocates for universal healthcare, legal accountability and financial reform is dangerous unless dismissed as a far left radical ranter who is not a real economist. Nice try. Hope that wasn’t too political.</p>

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<p>Counsel, that was pretty political. I am going to pass on responding to your assertions, because we would now be venturing into a conversation that undoubtedly would have nothing to do with the purpose of this forum.</p>