Taking Math 53 & Econ 101A Together?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>Math is a prereq for econ butttt can you take both in the same semester? Or must you complete math before taking econ 101A?</p>

2

<p>the advisers will say no, and for a reason - math 1A and 1B alone isn’t enough for this course. you need the general intuition that you learn in math 53, although the Lagrange method, which is used a lot in econ 101A, can be learned pretty easily.</p>

<p>that said, i know someone doing that, so it’s ok i guess…</p>

3

<p>when i took 101a, we learned the hessian matrix and multivariate implicit function theorem in the first week of 101a. i think you’d be very confused very fast since you wouldn’t even get to partial derivatives until half way into 53. You’d probably have to learn all the material on partial differentiation on your own in the first week to keep up.</p>

<p>take a look at the 2nd lecture’s slides: <a href=“http://elsa.berkeley.edu/users/webfac/dellavigna/e101a_f09/lec2_f09.pdf[/url]”>http://elsa.berkeley.edu/users/webfac/dellavigna/e101a_f09/lec2_f09.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>If you enjoy math, then learning partial derivatives and then lagrange multiplers shouldn’t really be too much of a problem.</p>

<p>If you don’t enjoy math, then taking Econ 101A probably isn’t a smart idea. I’m currently in Math 53 and we reach partial derivatives on the 4th week. Lagrange multipliers is the next week. But the first 3 weeks are review from pre-calc (polar, parametric, vectors, and representation of functions in 3D).</p>

5

<p>honestly i dont think math in econ 101a is that demanding. 99% of times it comes down to if you have ANY economic intuition to come up with different or similar cases. partial derivatives used in this class can be learned in 30 min. just read the first two sections of standard calc book on partial derivates.</p>

6

<p>How hard is it to get an advisor code to do this(what do you need to tell them/what do they like to see)?</p>

7

<p>From my experience, professors will rarely enforce prerequisites and the online systems don’t enforce them either. So you don’t need an adviser code, you just enroll in the class. Although Econ 101A fills up extraordinarily quickly.</p>