<p>Quality of professors, class sizes, what courses are taken, what's the highest level of math, etc?</p>
<p>I’ve heard it’s quite good, but can any econ students at Vassar talk more about it, as I too would like to know.</p>
<p>As a Vassar econ major, I can vouch for the econ department being top notch, equivalent I’d say to comparable schools such as Harvard and Yale. We have a famous professor of econometrics (advanced statistics for economics) who used to teach at Berkeley and who Harvard and MIT compete to steal from us, but he won’t leave because he likes teaching here. His econometrics textbooks are used by virtually all top graduate economics program (MIT, etc.). We have several professors who went to Oxford, Columbia, and similarly strong schools. In terms of specialties, the professors have all the bases covered and teach excellent high-level courses in their respective general areas of research. In terms of classes sizes, it can’t be beat. Aside from intro to micro/macro, EVERYTHING is capped at 20 students. Not to mention, the courses are VERY well taught. I can confidently say I’m getting a much better economics education than my friends at similar schools such as Tufts based on classes I’ve sat in on at other universities and from things I’ve heard by word of mouth.
As for courses typically taken, normally intro micro and macro are taken in the freshman year and probability/statistics in the sophomore or junior year. Micro and macro theory (intermediate) are also usually taken in the sophomore year. If a student has not yet taken calculus, they normally take that freshman or sophomore year, and it’s strongly advised, although not required for the intro/intermediate micro and macro courses. No math beyond that is required, and the rest of the economics courses after that are electives that you can take to learn, in a surprising amount of depth, about a specific area of economics.
I hope I helped</p>
<p>According to RateMyProfessors, there seems to be a lot of negative feedback. Either the grading is harsh, there’s too much work, or the teachers are egotistical. The teachers that are considered “easy” happen to be boring. IDK how much to trust that site though…</p>
<p>I would say not to trust RateMyProfessors because, for one, half the professors on there used to teach at Vassar, but don’t anymore; it’s also important to note that those who post on there tend to be polarized towards either hating or loving their experiences with the prof.</p>
<p>I’m an Econ/Math double.</p>
<ol>
<li>The faculty is not on the level of Harvard/Yale. That’s pretty outlandish. The quality is extremely high for the size and nature of Vassar. You won’t find it anywhere outside of most T20 schools. The biggest strength is that you can find 2 or 3 mentors that will match your effort in working 1-on-1. That’s pretty insane for undergrad.</li>
<li>Get a permanent Vassar professor for your intro classes. The department lost a couple professors during the 2008-9 crash. To handle the large number of students taking intro classes, they would bring in lower quality teachers for classes of mostly non-majors. I had a guy that just read straight from a powerpoint and could barely speak english teach my intro macro.</li>
<li>The financial accounting class is painful.</li>
<li>Upper level classes are sick.</li>
<li>The teachers are retardedly accessible. If you take the time to get to know them, you’ll see they are some of the coolest people in the world. They will also do major work for you for internships, grad recs, etc. There is actually a small Vassar presence on Wall Street that is fighting tooth and nail to bring in more vgrads.</li>
</ol>
<p>Sara Pearlman is the coolest teacher ever.
Sean Flynn was cool but got asked to leave for some sketch behavior.
If you don’t agree with Pat Jones’ extreme views in Econ Development, she will **** with your grade.</p>
<p>The only internationally known/borderline econ savant is the statistics teacher, Paul Ruud, who was mentioned above. Overall, a very very high quality department that with basically work with you 1-on-1 and fight to get you to where you want to be if you make an effort and put in the work.</p>