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Another anecdote (engineer here): We were told in my econ class how difficult the math was and I always struggle with core math classes like calculus and differ

Another anecdote (engineer here): We were told in my econ class how difficult the math was and I always struggle with core math classes like calculus and differential equations, so I was worried. I spoke to the professor and he asked my major. When I replied with "engineering", he asked my GPA, to which I replied 3.6. He then laughed and said I'd be fine. In the next few classes I found out that your beginner Macro & Microeconomics courses basically need you to be able to add/subtract/multiply/divide and find the area of a triangle. So basically any 5th grader could do the problems although terms like marginal cost might sound scary. I know in more advanced courses things like probability & statistics come into play and that there are many professors who know what they're doing. Despite that, I feel like many graduates probably don't know the background, just the tooling to use for a particular class of problems. As much as I hate to admit it, the derivations typically done in Math/Physics/Engineering serve a real purpose (besides annoying students) in that they show you how things really work and came into being. Without knowing the why, you're basically plugging numbers into a black box and hoping you don't do something that causes it to break down. Despite all this, there are some real gems in Economics that are very useful. I'm re-learning econ at the moment and it is helpful to know how markets work.

BeetleB 9y ago
>We were told in my econ class how difficult the math was and I always struggle with core math classes like calculus and differential equations, so I was worried. I spoke to the professor and he asked my major. When I replied with "engineering", he asked my GPA, to which I replied 3.6. He then laughed and said I'd be fine Was this in the US? Undergrad econ is very watered down compared to Europe. A common lament here is that people who get their undergrad in econ in the US are woefully unprepared for the math they'll need in grad school. Econometrics uses as much calculus as engineering does (PDE's, etc). In other countries, they do this at the undergrad level.
- throwaway7645 9y ago
  Yes in the U.S. If econometrics in Europe actually goes over partial differential equations, then it is an order of magnitude more complex than schools in the U.S. If they do cover that in the U.S. it would only be done at a glance as they don't take a real calculus or differential equations or other mid-advanced math classes. They do have business calculus, but that is a joke.
- geebee 9y ago
  Oddly, economics is one of the fields where you're probably better prepared for graduate work in economics if you major in something other than economics. Math, physics, or engineering may be better prep. Of course, one solution is to just major in Econ and make sure you take those classes. The US undergrad path is very different, it's not as specialized as it is overseas. There's flexibility - well, use that flexibility to take math through diff eq, linear algebra, some proof based stuff, and perhaps some numerical analysis or computing. Also - some universities essentially offer two tracks. My alma mater, UCSD, does this. When I was there, you could major in Econ or "QEDS" - quantitative economics and decision science. I think they've changed the name and modified the curriculum since then but it's a similar track - it requires that you sit with the engineering, math, and hard science majors for the first couple years of calc, linear algebra, and DE's, and offers upper division work that draws on this background. The basic Econ major required very minimal calculus from a shorter and less rigorous sequence. This split is present in a lot of US universities, as far as I understand. You really can't know just by looking at the name of the degree, because a "BA" in economics at some universities actually does reflect a mathematically rigorous program.

BeetleB 9y ago

>We were told in my econ class how difficult the math was and I always struggle with core math classes like calculus and differential equations, so I was worried. I spoke to the professor and he asked my major. When I replied with "engineering", he asked my GPA, to which I replied 3.6. He then laughed and said I'd be fine Was this in the US? Undergrad econ is very watered down compared to Europe. A common lament here is that people who get their undergrad in econ in the US are woefully unprepared for the math they'll need in grad school. Econometrics uses as much calculus as engineering does (PDE's, etc). In other countries, they do this at the undergrad level.

throwaway7645 9y ago
Yes in the U.S. If econometrics in Europe actually goes over partial differential equations, then it is an order of magnitude more complex than schools in the U.S. If they do cover that in the U.S. it would only be done at a glance as they don't take a real calculus or differential equations or other mid-advanced math classes. They do have business calculus, but that is a joke.
geebee 9y ago
Oddly, economics is one of the fields where you're probably better prepared for graduate work in economics if you major in something other than economics. Math, physics, or engineering may be better prep. Of course, one solution is to just major in Econ and make sure you take those classes. The US undergrad path is very different, it's not as specialized as it is overseas. There's flexibility - well, use that flexibility to take math through diff eq, linear algebra, some proof based stuff, and perhaps some numerical analysis or computing. Also - some universities essentially offer two tracks. My alma mater, UCSD, does this. When I was there, you could major in Econ or "QEDS" - quantitative economics and decision science. I think they've changed the name and modified the curriculum since then but it's a similar track - it requires that you sit with the engineering, math, and hard science majors for the first couple years of calc, linear algebra, and DE's, and offers upper division work that draws on this background. The basic Econ major required very minimal calculus from a shorter and less rigorous sequence. This split is present in a lot of US universities, as far as I understand. You really can't know just by looking at the name of the degree, because a "BA" in economics at some universities actually does reflect a mathematically rigorous program.