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<p>Start looking for jobs/internships right now. Entry level or anything. So you don’t have to be on the grind looking for job after you graduate.</p>
<p>Wow. I have been considering Econ as a major, but not too seriously. Amazing, you have pretty much sold me on that idea now. I am going to be a junior in high school this year…so I still have time to think about all of this, but I’m glad you wrote this. It really helped! Thanks! =D</p>
<p>P.S. I only read the first few things you wrote, but I will come back and read more cause you have a lot of great things to say (it seems to me).</p>
<p>I think that the statistics are biased since the successful people come from top schools. Sure, the sources are credible, but the stats are greatly skewed by people from top schools. Many of the OP’s little testimonials are from people from top schools. Business employers would hire people from top schools any day, regardless of the Economics degree. Someone who majors in Business with honors at San Jose State would probably be preferred to someone from UC San Diego who majors in Economics for a Silicon Valley job</p>
<p>Amazing post! (no pun intended)</p>
<p>Seriously, I’m starting at a CCC this fall (also some courses in summer), and I wanted to transfer to Cal for Business Admin. However, that 6% acceptance rate really had me down (was insecure and didn’t think I could do it). I’ve started thinking about doing Economics now, because I really want to go to Cal. So, I’ll be aiming for Econ at either UCB/UCLA with Irvine as my safety! This thread has really solidified my thoughts though. Thanks!</p>
<p>You should major in economics because its matheszsethesz based. And this is the US of A, people are afraid of algebra, meaning, you’ll get paid more to learn it. Duh…</p>
<p>Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful(Warren Buffett). It works with everything.</p>
<p>If you want to be rich, learn to play the market (stock market, currency market, real estate market, other commodities market). Don’t think salary alone will make you a millionaire. You don’t need to major in economics to be able to play the market. Out of the economics degree-holders, very few people think the actual knowledge they acquired during their undergraduate studies are valuable. This is because they know the materials you learned in the economics courses are very incompatible in the real world.</p>
<p>And you need to distinguish between causation and correlation. In UCLA, econ department had the highest portion of seniors graduating with latin honors (the cum laudes). And honestly, while economics isn’t a cakewalk, it’s not exactly a rocket science, either. In a scale of 1 to 10, I’d put it at solid 6 in terms of the program’s difficulty. Sure, you could say that economics degree alone makes you more marketable to make big starting salary, but you could also interpret it that the naturally “smart” or ambitious or generally more money-craving individuals tend to major in economics based on what was fed to them by the media (the notion that the economics major lead to high salaries), which I’m sure is the reason why the majority of you picked the economics major. Very few people has passion for the major itself. Vast majority picks the major based on the monetary compensation promised to them once they graduate. Many of them confront disappointing results. But back to the point. Who knows what the real reason is. But to say that the degree alone is a pathway to high salary isn’t a very fair way of interpretation.</p>
<p>Raising a thread from the dead to point out some flaws in logic…</p>
<p>Out of the economics degree-holders, very few people think the actual knowledge they acquired during their undergraduate studies are valuable. This is because they know the materials you learned in the economics courses are very incompatible in the real world.</p>
<p>This is completely false and baseless. There are industries with no relation, industries with some relation, and some with DIRECT relation.</p>
<p>I do management and marketing right now for a PC Gaming company. MMOs and MMORPGs in particular. One of my job duties is to write economics reports and analyze the in-game economy. If you have ever played a game like World of Warcraft, you would know that maintaining a stable virtual economy is absolutely essential.</p>
<p>[Virtual</a> economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_economy]Virtual”>Virtual economy - Wikipedia)
[Real</a> Cash Economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Cash_Economy]Real”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Cash_Economy)</p>
<p>There are people like me who monitor and maintain the economy because it is vital to the revenue of the company. If the in-game economy crashes the game is ****ed. There are also other things I do in which economics has helped, but I won’t start on that tangent right now.</p>
<p>There is a misconception that for something to be practical, you have to be spoon fed taught “how to fix a microsoft visual c++ runtime error” or something. Obviously wrong.</p>
<p>Very few people has passion for the major itself. Vast majority picks the major based on the monetary compensation promised to them once they graduate. Many of them confront disappointing results. But back to the point. Who knows what the real reason is. But to say that the degree alone is a pathway to high salary isn’t a very fair way of interpretation.</p>
<p>This is a general claim true of any major. You kinda have to understand economic thinking to understand this thread in the first place. In economic analysis, the very first thing you do is hold all other variables constant to best work at the margin.</p>
<p>Of course it would be dumb to think that choosing a good major alone would propel you to success. If you don’t have good grades, a quick mind, good internships, etc etc you are always going to be ****ed no matter what major you are.</p>
<p>If two identical twins had the same gpa, same work experience, same internships, etc etc and one was an Econ major and the other was an English Literature major, it is very easy for me to argue that the Econ major will have somewhat of an advantage when it comes to the real world. It’s called thinking rationally at the margin, what economists do.</p>
<p>I don’t give a **** about MMORPG. If your main argument is that it allows you to play well in some online game, it’s not convincing me. And seriously, how many people actually go work in a gaming industry? You might as well make an argument that the optimal job for econ major is to go work for Blizzard. </p>
<p>Honestly, all you do in econ courses is what would happen to a model if you put a, b, and c factors constant. Is that how the real world works? It’s unlike the other practical majors where you obtain working skill in doing things. Econ major develops your critical and analytical thinking ability, as well as thinking in terms of rationality. These are very important job skills. And the important thing that economics emphasizes (I don’t want to say “teaches” because it’s impossible to “teach” something most people know, just don’t think about) is incentives. There are incentives all over the place driving everyone’s behavior. Economics forces you to figure out which incentives are the important ones, the ones upon which decisions are being made; once you understand those incentives, you can figure out ways to change behavior. So ok, it enables you to think differently. BUT! regarding the actual CONTENT of materials you learn (what keynesian econ does vs neo-classical vs neo-keynesian and all that ********) will have very little use (if at all) in the real world. Sure you learn about cost and benefit (if marginal cost is greater than marginal benefit, don’t do it) but then that’s really a common sense that any non-econ majors know.</p>
<p>Economists do it with models. :)</p>
<p>Just because its a model doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to the real world. After all, physics is just a mathematical model of the real world and that seems to have plenty of real world applications.</p>
<p>I am currently a math major, but I am really interested with economic theory. Is it worth double majoring in economics if that’s the case? What can you do with economic theory and math after college? Is financial engineering more applied or theoretical?</p>
<p>@OP. you have brought up some extremely interesting points about the economics major. although im a mechanical engineering major, i loved economics when i took it. i was actually a business(accounting) major, but loved every aspect of economics when i took it. i decided i liked applying math to everything much more than keeping track of debits and credits. i think i might just go for a math minor and pursue some sort of m in economics & mba type thing. the list of math courses needed for economics particularly interested me. do you guys really have to take real analysis at the undergrad level?</p>
<p>I’ve read that real analysis and other more rigorous math courses (at least in my opinion) are only required for acceptance into Ph.D programs.</p>
<p>Hey guys, I think all the info you provided is great, thanks alot!</p>
<p>I have a question, however.
I am in a CC right now hoping to transfer out after 60 credits to either ucsd or uci for undergraduate school. I would aim for higher, but I have to be realistic about my capabilities. I’m pretty frustrated by calculus AB right now because I just dropped it, teacher was hard.
But anyway, I’m wondering which career I should aim for, since economist majors have many pathways open to them. I’m wondering which economic jobs are most common- easy to find, and high paying.
Ya, I like things easy :)</p>
<p>Well, this thread has interested me enough that I’ll take macro-econ before I graduate.</p>
<p>I took a semester of macroecon and followed it up with a semester of microecon (took them partially to fulfill GE reqs, partially out of interest). Two of the most useful courses I’ve ever taken.</p>
<p>i took macroecon and microecon together over a summer before my senior year of high school and loved it so much i chose to major in econ :D</p>
<p>^and yes, they have been really useful :]</p>
<p>I would like advice from anyone who would care to give an opinion on the following. I am 36 and intend to return to UCB after a lengthy absence. My plan is to earn a degree in economics and graduate in 2013. Lately I have been reconsidering: I am concerned that I might face age discrimination in the types of jobs open to me with this degree. Am I wrong? My alternate plan would be to pursue a health related career in which I would face less age related bias.</p>
<p>I’d go with the health care related field route. The health field looks favorably upon older folks and experience while the business/tech industries (whether they want to admit it or not). have massive age discrimination. 36 isn’t too old by the way. There are many people in their 40’s and even 50’s who are trying to get into nursing. I’m 21 and was going to transfer as a history major but I’m planning to stay another 2 years at CC to transfer in as a biology/toxicology major and get into a DPT (doctor of physical therapy) program.</p>