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Guide To Majors At NYU: Economics

By Nicole He

Note: Whether you're still deciding between two majors or you've already picked and want to know how wrong your choice was, you'll undoubtedly find our new Guide To NYU Majors useful. We'll be asking students in specific majors their thoughts on various aspects of their chosen field. This is the first in the series.

Major: Economics
School: CAS
Concentrations: Theory and Policy
Possible Joint Majors: Mathematics or Computer Science
Required Number of Classes: 10
Minor?: Yes

Economics seems to be one of those majors that people who don't want to be doctors or lawyers but still feel like they need a "respectable" major flock to. It's pretty popular because it supposedly affords a good deal of options for post-graduation employment, even though you might not actually use the things you've learned in your classes. There are two tracks: Policy, for the less math-inclined, and Theory, for the more math-inclined (and let's face it — legitimate). It is perhaps the "hardest" of social sciences, with very little (if any) essay-writing, and tons of test-taking for understanding of concepts and mathematical problem solving. You'll see below that Econ students at NYU have wide-ranging opinions on quality of classes and professor, particularly across the Policy/Theory divide. I've had awful professors, decent professors, and great professors in Econ, and the classes get far, far better the higher up you go.

WHAT THE UNIVERSITY SAYS

The Department of Economics prepares students to understand individual and group decision making, the structure of markets and economies, and the relationship between regions within the global economy. The faculty at New York University is particularly strong in Economic Theory, Macroeconomics, International Economics, and Economic Growth and Development. Although Economics is a large Department, its students enjoy an excellent student-faculty rapport. Many of the faculty members are associated with distinguished research institutions. By being able to study with faculty who are actively engaged in research, students learn not only about the fundamentals of economic theory but also about how such theory is utilized. They have the opportunity to conduct research on their own. Honors students are required to write a research paper as an Honors Thesis under direct faculty supervision.

WHAT THE STUDENTS SAY

Quality of Professors:

• "Very, very good overall. I've had maybe one professor who wasn't a great teacher. And they're all brilliant."
• "The professors for econ are really a toss-up. There are the obvious stars, such as Marc Lieberman, whose classes are impossible to get into; there are also the unsung gems, such as History of Economic Thought with Kitsikopoulos and Experimental Econ with Guillaume Frechette. But for every great professor there are two not-so-great ones, and with few exceptions you can sense a lack of enthusiasm and disbelief (usually at how dumb the questions are) directed toward the students. "
• "Economics professors run the gamut quality-wise. If you're looking for engaging, I can only think of one or two. Most of the time, I'll consider a good professor someone who knows their stuff and can deliver it in a manner that's easy to understand. There are a fair few who can't finish one thought before moving onto another completely unrelated topic. Oh, and make sure you're decent at understanding accents. As a second semester senior, I've taken classes with 11 different Economics professors and only 3 have not had foreign accents."

Best Classes

• "Macro with Gertler, Psych & Econ with Caplin."
• "International Economics with Marc Lieberman, History of Economic Thought with Harilos Kitsokopolis, Economic Development with Anirban Mitra (TA), Experimental Economics with Guillaume Frechette."
• "By far, International Economics with Prof. Lieberman. I waited 3 semesters before I got into this class, but it was worth it.
  If by "best," you mean "easy," anything by Paizis is a good bet. Not because he is easy per se, but his classes are straightforward and organized. He's a good teacher and if you do as he says, you'll do well. "

Worst Requirement

• "Depends on the teacher, really, but econometrics."
• "This is more of a lack thereof: because the policy major (which most econ students take) doesn't require anything more than high school calculus, it leaves students ill-prepared for any realistic conception of economics. Seriously. I once witnessed a class nearly revolt when Nikolai Persico started to do a derivate in a 300-level class. THIS IS A BASIC CONCEPT OF ECONOMICS AND MOST SENIORS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT MEANS."
• "Statistics. Snooze. I became an expert at completing the NYTimes crossword while attending those lectures."

Work Load

• "Very light in most classes, but requires serious, intense studying for tests. Not much busy work. If you don't have good intuition, though, it will be really tough."
• "The workload for econ is a joke, unless you're doing theory."
• "Pretty standard across the board — weekly textbook reading, midterm, final. If you keep up in class, you should have no problems. If you do happen to land a class where you have to write a paper, chances are that you already write better than the 1/3 of the class who decided to take Econ because they are 'good at math.'"

Class Size

• "Never had an econ class larger than 50. Most were 10–20. 300-level electives have been mostly under 10."
• "The class size is pretty bad; almost all lectures, even at the senior-most levels. I strongly urge looking for small classes because those were consistently the best. "
• "Huge to pretty big. They range from large lectures of 150+ to an average of 50 people, even at the 300-level. I've only taken two classes with less than 30 people, and only as a senior. "

Reputation

• "Econ Theory is generally considered the hardest social science major. Really really smart kids."
• "Put it this way: even the NYU economics department is ashamed of its own undergrads."

What The Students Are Like

• "Nerdy and extremely smart. Many aren't very social. Not too likely to find dates in your classes."
• "The students who major in econ are some of the dumbest fucking people you'll ever meet in NYU. The classes are almost entirely compromised of the mundane questioner, the over-professional douche, the unproductive whiner, the idiotically angry kid, and most of all the disillusioned (of which I was one). Students are often afflicted with entitlement about paying for their degree, and yet demonstrate an unwillingness to work hard and apathy towards any real learning. Expect to hear, 'None of this matters anyways because I'll learn on the job' quoted as though it came directly from the mouth of Jesus; sadly, the statement is often true. Expect existential dilemmas as you sit in poorly-lit classroom with these peers."
• "Big classes don't usually facilitate class participation, so interaction with your classmates is minimal. The person sitting next to you is usually friendly enough, but don't expect to meet your best friend in Econ I. The major is large enough that usually three or four of your friends happen to be Econ majors and you can plan to be in the same classes, but I can count the number of actual friends I've made through being in the same class on one hand."

Internships and Post-Grad Opportunities

• "Limitless options. Many go to Wall Street, but I've gone into public policy/think tank internships."
• "If you want to get into banking/finance, you can definitely do it. I've stuck mostly with my second major, but it seems like "economics" on my resume still managed to impress employers. If you're actually interested in econ and want to learn about it, either do theory or go to grad school."
• "Generally, Economics is a great major because it's broad enough that you can apply to almost any job and they'll entertain you at least for a second. I've held internships in fields varying from banking to PR.
  Speaking to OCR specifically, you're worse off than Stern students but not as screwed as any other CAS major. Most companies accept Economics majors, so you'll be allowed to apply for a fair amount of jobs on CareerNet, unlike the poor International Relations major who takes Economics classes but can't apply because the employers don't even know that that major exists."

Reasons To Pick This Major

• "You want to get one of the best educations possible at NYU. You want to make a lot of money. You want to go into law, public policy, or finance. You want to be challenged intellectually without doing lots of mind-numbing homework."
• "Economics is a really interesting and useful subject, but the policy major teaches you nothing you can't glean from a handful of Wikipedia articles and a couple of pop books (in fact, that might teach you even more). Seriously, PICK THEORY. That seems to me to be the way to go."
• "You're good at logic and reasoning; that's 90% of Economics — why people do what they do to. You do well with visual learning — gotta be able to grasp those supply-demand graphs. You have pretty good quantitative skills. (The hardest math you'll ever have to do is take a derivative.) You take an interest in current events and how global trends can affect markets and even human behavior.
  For God's sake, haven't you read Freakonomics?? Economics ties into everything — from how Tenka make money to how seatbelts can kill you. It makes for some interesting conversations — a friend and I once had an hour-long debate about the business models of online penny auctions (and it actually engaged the whole room, which included one History major, one Politics major, one Psychology major and a Social Work major)."

Reasons Not To Choose This Major

• "You're not smart. You don't love econ. You need a lot of guidance in your studying."
• "See all of the above: 1) learn nothing; 2) stupid classmates; 3) large lectures; 4) even the faculty are embarrassed by you. If you're going to do econ, again, DO THEORY. Or, at the very least, take a lot of math."
• "If you only thrive in a small classroom. You don't understand any accent, except American English. (Although then you probably shouldn't be at NYU.) You are absolutely useless at math. You lack any sort of reasoning or logic skills."

Other Comments

• "I've loved almost every minute of my econ classes. I can't say that about any other field at NYU."
• "I went on to my Master's in Econ from NYU and I still can't get over the difference in quality. I learned more from a single Master's course than I did from four years of undergrad economics. I would highly recommend all undergrads to try to take one Master's class — the professors are way better, and the course material is far more stimulating. What I was able to divine was that I really, really should have done theory instead of policy, or at least have taken more math. Because, believe it or not, "Econ" is basically just an extension of math; the really interesting stuff, at least, you can't learn without a solid basis in linear algebra and calculus."

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Source: https://nyulocal.com/guide-to-majors-at-nyu-economics-212d49c1fa65

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