<p>probably on the Duke forum, where you should be.</p>
<p>Take a look at the current economic situation. The appeal of the b-school is going to drop over the next few years as the number of i-bank jobs offering six-figures drops drastically. I don't know what this means for econ...maybe people skip econ too as they shift focus to engineering, teaching, whatever. Maybe the kids who really love econ decide to pursue econ rather than the b-school? Who knows.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Take a look at the current economic situation. The appeal of the b-school is going to drop over the next few years as the number of i-bank jobs offering six-figures drops drastically. I don't know what this means for econ...maybe people skip econ too as they shift focus to engineering, teaching, whatever. Maybe the kids who really love econ decide to pursue econ rather than the b-school? Who knows.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I disagree. Economic booms and busts happen -It's a cycle. It's true that the economy is in a recession right now and banks are hardly hiring students as much as they used to, but in a couple years things will start improving and recruitment will be up.</p>
<p>Wow, is this a comman problem throughout campus? Students don't learn much from the professor? I'll assume econ is a high demand major for those would have interest in the field, or Ross buisness school.</p>
<p>I can't speak for why Michigan students elect to be econ majors, but speaking generally I think econ is a good preparation for a number of careers. One benefit, albeit a shallow one, is that many people think of it as a pretty rigorous discipline so they make generally flattering assumptions about your intelligence or work ethic for having chosen it. </p>
<p>The fact that it's a social science with a strong quantitative component means you get a good preparation for the kinds of things you might be asked to do in a number of careers. I know a lot of successful econ majors working in a bunch of fields.--and no, they didn't just go to grad school in Econ.</p>
<p>What stuns me is the fact that despite 300+ students in 401 and 402, there is just ONE lecture class. I mean, that's ridiculous. Why not divide it into 3 different lecture classes? </p>
<p>And MightyNick, I'm an OOS majoring in Econ, who turned down Ross because I could graduate a year early. Imagine the pain I go through every day thinking about how I'm spending $40k to listen to useless German professors and do impossible problem sets.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What stuns me is the fact that despite 300+ students in 401 and 402, there is just ONE lecture class. I mean, that's ridiculous. Why not divide it into 3 different lecture classes?</p>
<p>And MightyNick, I'm an OOS majoring in Econ, who turned down Ross because I could graduate a year early. Imagine the pain I go through every day thinking about how I'm spending $40k to listen to useless German professors and do impossible problem sets.
[/quote]
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<p>I almost turned down Ross too (since I could have graduated a year earlier) but after taking a few more Econ classes, I'm glad I didn't. The other day I was sitting in my 402 lecture and thinking the exact same thing - I would've been paying 40K+ to listen to pointless lectures that hardly help answering homework and exam questions!! </p>
<p>Btw, doesn't your German professor have amazing handwriting? haha.</p>
<p>Hey guys, MightyNick's points are all right on. I share his thoughts exactly. I'm in Econ 402 and what have I learned all this semester? That my interest in Econ has dwindled to a very nice zero. Thank you Sharpiro.</p>
<p>"What stuns me is the fact that despite 300+ students in 401 and 402, there is just ONE lecture class. I mean, that's ridiculous. Why not divide it into 3 different lecture classes?"</p>
<p>It appears that michigan is not the only one, intermediate macro and micro lecture classes in other top universities like duke and berkeley are also packed with 300+ students (almost 400 for berkeley).</p>
<p>USC have 3 lectures of 50 people max in each of them....</p>
<p>
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USC have 3 lectures of 50 people max in each of them....
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</p>
<p>And your point is that USC is better than Michigan? NEVER!</p>
<p>Lol.. MightyNick, at the undergrad level, I'd say Michigan and USC are roughly equal. Michigan is a slightly better school though, but the difference is negligible i guess..</p>
<p>Let's see, try to teach yourself Econ 402 or have the luxury of visiting a professor during his office hour and actually receive some individual attention? Hmnn tough choice.</p>
<p>Economics has grown in popularity over the years. I was comparing class sizes yesterday and here's what I came up with. Back in my day, we only had 200 or so Econ students graduating each year. Now, you have close to 500. It is fair to assume that classes have more than doubled in size since then because the faculty has not grown as much. However, this trend is not restricted to just Michigan. Other elite programs are plagued with 100-200 students per lecture hall. Schools like:</p>
<p>Columbia:</p>
<p>Intermediate Macro has over 300 students, intermediate Micro has 100 students per class. Most interesting electrives, such as Econometrics and Financial Economics have 75-150 students enrolled in them.</p>
<p>Duke</p>
<p>Intermediate Micro I is capped at 400 and Intermediate Micro II and Macro are capped at 150.</p>
<p>Courses that could be useful for IBankers, such Econometrics, Asset Pricing and Risk Management and Financial Accounting are capped at over 100 students too. Most advanced classes worth taking are capped at 40. </p>
<p>Northwestern</p>
<p>Course</a> Description for ECON Economics 310-1: Microeconomics Fall 2008</p>
<p>Course</a> Description for ECON Economics 310-2: Microeconomics Fall 2008</p>
<p>Course</a> Description for ECON Economics 311-0: Macroeconomics Fall 2008</p>
<p>At Michigan, Intermediate Macro and Micro enroll roughly 300-375 students. So yes, they are large, but I don't see how 150-300 at Duke, Columbia or NU is any better. Most popular 400 level courses now seem to enroll between 70 and 150 students now adays. Again, I don't see how that is much worse than that its peers.</p>
<p>LSA</a> Course Guide</p>
<p>LSA</a> Course Guide</p>
<p>LSA</a> Course Guide</p>
<p>LSA</a> Course Guide</p>
<p>LSA</a> Course Guide</p>
<p>Cornell, Harvard, Penn and Stanford do not give details about class size, but you can be sure their Econ classes are just as large. </p>
<p>And if you look at the electives offered at other Elite programs, you will notice that they are pretty much the same as the ones offered at Michigan. It is important to manage expectations folks. </p>
<p>Elite universities are awesome, but they have their limitations too. Popular Majors such as Biology, Economics, English, History, Political Science and Psychology are going to attract a lot of interest. As such, classes will tend to be large. Lectures in those departments with fewer than 40 students are rare and popular classes with fewer than 75 students are very rare indeed.</p>
<p>I guess that brings up the question of, why so many people want to get into these popular majors, my guess is that they are mostly very general degrees, trendy or useful, for example poli sci. and psychology, there's a large portion of these majors that are pre-law. For economics, I imagine a lot of these folks wanted to get into IB, or MC. </p>
<p>Why aren't more people majoring in subjects like Classics, which I remember my freshman year there was a girl in my 400 level history class(which was very small, with no pre-reqs), said she was one of the only 3 classics majors or something along those lines, or maybe there was a concentration that she was in. I mean there are ton of small departments, off the top of my head, in the COE, I know Material Science is very small, less than 100 undergrads total usually, they even post all the undergraduates names and contacts on the website, which are usually done for graduate students. That department has over 30 core faculty for those students. I mean that's a pretty good ratio.</p>
<p>You know, Michigan is joining an interesting undergraduate survey program started at Berkeley. All students will have a chance to take it, and among the questions are items that get at exactly these kinds of issues. And the survey is designed to be broken down by departments/majors so that the University can see, department by department, whether students are getting contact with faculty, are getting the classes they need, and so on.</p>
<p>U-M also participates in NSSE (the National Survey of Student Engagement) but it doesn't dig into these issues as much, only surveys a sample of students, and it's not as easily broken down by department. This Berkeley-designed survey is more comprehensive. This won't happen until Spring but I hope anyone who is a Michigan student will participate. It asks questions about all kinds of undergraduate aspects. I think it will be really valuable and I'm pleased we're collecting the data.</p>
<p>Is there any difference class-size wise if you're in the honors program?</p>
<p>Is UM trying to do anything to fix this, like hiring more profs, having more classes, 300 kids in a class sounds rough.</p>
<p>Columbia University's intro to Econ has 400 students. Northwestern, Stanford and Duke have intro level classes with 200 or so students.</p>
<p>As has already been stated, econ classes have lecture and discussion sections.</p>
<p>Especially for the intro courses, the lectures are very large.
The discussion sections, however, have 20-30 people (based on my experience).</p>