The University of Chicago

Date: Mar 15 2003
Major: Economics (This Major's Salary over time)
I'm sure there are many of you aspiring economists, businessmen, investment bankers, and young financial analysts that want the best education possible and be in the position to vault to the top of whatever field you choose. If this is your goal in life then you're not much different from me, and if you come to UC, you WILL get the best education in these branching fields of economics probably better than anywhere else in the world. And I am not throwing out propoganda.

I came here not really knowing what the expectations were for an econ degree, but I soon learned that there are reasons why UC is considered the best place for such study. The econ that is taught here is completely different from other schools because econ is not taught as a social science, but rather as more of an extension of the mathematical and statistical sciences.

If you are interested in graduate study, you'll be taking courses such as Analysis in Rn (some choose to go on to Abstract Algebra to get a specialization in Math with their Econ degree), a formal approach to Game Theory, several econometrics courses, and many excruciatingly difficult statistics courses. And all the while, remember you'll need to finish your core requirements in social science, humanities, a second language, drama and the arts, biology, and the physical sciences. Then in your last year, you had better get started on writing a BA research paper, which requires the approval of the econ department in order for you to get the "Honors" tag on your Econ degree (which helps a lot in getting into grad school).

Note that you don't have to do all this. There are many, many econ students here, and obviously most of them simply can't or don't want to handle all of this. Most of them study econ just so they can have the prestige of having a degree in Economics from UC. For those students, they get an econ education much like at other schools because they study econ as though it's supposed to be an tool used in public policy.

But if you really want to have best undergraduate education in the study of economics and like the idea of being able to chat with 5 different nobel laureates in the field in one day, then UC will be a good school for you.

But if you're looking for a good time. Go elsewhere, and I mean it.