Economics (A&S)

Career Pathways

Shape Your Future in Economics

Economics is more than a field of study—it's a social science that offers a competitive edge in today’s job market. This major opens doors to diverse, rewarding career paths in areas like private business, consulting, government, and financial services. Many Economics majors also pursue advanced studies, including MBAs, MPAs, and law school, where their skills in critical thinking and data analysis give them a significant advantage.

Your economics training provides you with a terrific set of job skills, and in fact the economics major provides you with virtually all of the top ten most important job skills (according to Job Choices magazine produced by the National Association of Colleges and Employers). These skills can be simplified for conciseness here into three categories:

• Qualitative communication skill: This means communicating with a variety of audiences in a variety of formats. In economics, you will learn to communicate your ideas in writing- through essay exams, papers, and homework. In addition, the small class sizes in the upper level classes allows you the opportunity to speak in class. All of these tools improve your interpersonal communication skills. Some classes also present the opportunity to work with other students explicitly.
• Quantitative communication skills: This means the ability to understand numbers and their importance, and the ability to communicate quantitative information to others. All the graphs in economics represent quantitative concepts, and as an economics major you will certainly have no fear of graphs. Furthermore, many classes use explicit numerical problem solving.
• Analytical problem solving skills: There is no better major for learning analytical problem solving than economics. Economics is a way of thinking that provides core set of tools to use to analyze the world. You will learn how to take a problem, and break it down into its separate elements. All of business is problem solving, and this is the expertise you will learn from the logical constructs in economics.

What should you do? First, you need to prepare a proper degree plan that fits your abilities and preferences. If your goal is graduate or professional school (for which economics is excellent preparation), you will want to structure your studies differently than if you plan to exclusively develop your career. Your career interests will also dictate differences in which courses to take. The Economics Department also offers special opportunities to differentiate yourself from the madding crowd. Among the special opportunities are:

• The opportunity to pursue a path towards International Economics, Trade, and Development by taking ECO471, ECO472, ECO473 (ECO370 if not majoring in economics)
• The opportunity to pursue a path towards Law School by taking ECO461, ECO477, ECO479
• The opportunity to be relevant with BIG DATA – Minor with Business Analytics and take part in EconGames
• The opportunity to pursue a path towards Graduate School in Economics by taking ECO491 and some extra math.
• The opportunity to show your interest by being a member of the Economics Society (Join Economics Society).