One of the questions that you should ask yourself early on in your college career is

The advisor for all University College students and economics majors is Art Mead, so you should make an effort to keep in contact with him. To set up that initial meeting you will want to either email him or stop by during his regularly scheduled office hours. To get an idea of what to expect from your initial meeting, you should check out From the Advisor.

It all starts with the advisor, so book an appointment to discuss the program requirements and complete the necessary paperwork. It does not matter when you declare, but generally the earlier you declare the better since it will give you more flexibility when selecting your courses. To get started, you should check out the Requirements / Forms where you will find forms for declaring a major if you are coming from University College or any other college within the University.

It all starts with the advisor, so book an appointment to discuss the program requirements and complete the necessary paperwork. It does not matter when you declare the minor, but generally the earlier you declare the better since it will give you more flexibility when selecting your courses. You might check out the Requirements / Forms where you will find forms for declaring a minor and you should bring it to the advisor where you can discuss the selection of SIX courses in Economics that will comprise the minor.

Once again, it all starts with the advisor, so book an appointment to discuss the program requirements and complete the necessary paperwork. To start the process, you should check out the Requirements / Forms where you will find form for declaring a major which includes the option for declaring a second major. You will want to fill this in and bring it to your advisor to discuss your program of studies and what degree program would best fit your interests and skills.

Many students talk about how they think the world perceives BA and BS degrees differently, but I have yet to find an employer who has clearly stated a preference. The reality is that you will be rewarded for the skills and abilities you have when graduation day arrives rather than the degree on that transcript. The primary differences between the BA and the BS degrees are the level of mathematics and statistics required and a slight difference in the College's General Education requirements. For all BS students courses in statistics, math, and econometrics are required, while BA students do not need to take either a statistics course or a math course beyond what would be specified in the General Education program. You will find, however, that everyone will be encouraged to take a statistics course, and many should think about taking the econometrics course (ECN376) which is open to any Economics students.

The short answer is yes, but you certainly want to read carefully the requirements for the double degree. This used to be extremely difficult to do, but in recent years the process has been streamlined enough so that students are beginning to go this route. You probably want to talk to your Economics advisor early on since there will probably be few degrees of freedom when selecting your courses given the constraints / requirements of the two majors.

There are few certainties in life, and one is you will be closed out of a course at some point in time while here at URI. If you find an economics course closed you should contact one of two people. The first would be the instructor of the particular course, while the second would be the chair of the Department since he is the keeper of permission numbers for the core courses. If I were in your position, I would probably show up at the office during office hours rather than emailing or leaving a phone message since there is no substitute for that personal touch. I would also suggest you practice your answer to the "Why you?" question, and "it fits my schedule" is probably not the best approach.

The statistics and mathematics requirements depend upon the program of study that you select. At one end of the quantitative spectrum there is the BA degree where there are no requirements beyond the University's math requirement, while on the other end of the spectrum we have the BS degree in Theory and Methods that requires a number of high level mathematics courses. Within the course offerings, the only courses that have a statistics or calculus prerequisite are ECN323, ECN324, ECN375, and ECN376, but you can expect that in most courses you will need good quantitative skills.

The answer depends upon what it is you want to do in graduate school. Many economics students tend to go on to MBA programs, and if you are thinking about it, then you should think seriously about taking both statistics and calculus courses as well at ECN376. MBA courses all tend to require substantial quantitative skills, so you do not want to be catching up when you get to graduate school. For those interested in graduate study in Economics, you should seriously consider the BS in Theory and Methods since the high-level math courses will be expected of incoming students. If you happen to be interested in other graduate programs, you would probably want to identify someone on campus who might have some insight into program requirements. For example, if you are interested in a graduate degree in Public Policy, then you should try to talk with someone in Political Science. Regardless of what programs you might be interested in, it is not a bad strategy to contact the schools and ask an advisor for some suggestions, and you would want to do it before your senior year so you would have time to act on the advice.

Undergraduate training in economics does not generally lead to work after graduation as an economist, but it does provide a liberal arts education that prepares students for a wide array of interesting career options including graduate work in business, law, environmental studies, health care administration, and public policy, plus employment in banking and financial services, education, management trainee programs, government administration, and public service. The economics curriculum is less vocationally oriented than the undergraduate business curriculum, but it provides an educational experience that allows economics majors to apply for many of the positions open to graduating business majors. Majoring in economics is valuable because graduate schools and employers will tend to view this as evidence of your abilities to think logically and critically and your mastery of basic quantitative skills. And there are some rewards for these skills. Surveys of college graduates indicate that the starting salaries of economics majors are among the highest for all business and social science degrees.

For those interested in looking more generally at career options, you should check out the University's Career Services site and University College's site on minors and majors where you will find a number of career related links.

So you want to go into business. You are certainly not alone, as nearly 275,000 students were awarded degrees in business in 2002 – more than twice as many as the second largest major (history and social science, which includes economics). More than one of every five bachelor degrees awarded that year was in business. It is not really surprising that increasing numbers of students look to more vocational programs of study such as business as they, and their parents, look for a return on their increasingly costly investment in a college education and a way to compete in an increasingly competitive and “flattening” world. But is it the best strategy for positioning yourself for a successful entry into a rewarding and successful career? It could be for some, but it is not the only route – and it may not be the best for many of you.

How could it be that the best way to success in business is not an undergraduate degree? It is very simple. In the hypercompetitive world into which you will be graduating it will be your passion and the skills you possess that will be the key determinants of your success, and there are many ways to find that passion and develop those skills. Unless you are in some specialized fields such as engineering, biology, or pharmacy, you will find that the degree is not the most important factor in your success. A degree in economics is just one way to position yourself for a successful transition into that “real” world or graduate school, which is probably why the Wall Street Journal reported that it was the “top major at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford and the Universities of Pennsylvania and Chicago; second at Brown, Yale, and the University of California at Berkeley; and third at Cornell and Dartmouth.[1]” In that article the executive director of admissions to Yale’s School of Management wrote that the economics degree showed a student had “the intellectual fire in the belly to perform well in an MBA program”, while the director of admissions to Berkeley’s law school identified economics as one of the four or five top majors for admissions to the program. This is why many employers will include economics majors on the list of majors when they recruit business majors on campus, and if you want to see first-hand what you might be able to do with an economics degree, check out URI’s Career Services office and some online sites such as Monster.com where you will find a link to career advice for entry-level positions giving you access to a Career Converter that provides a list of potential careers.

Another way of looking at the situation would be to do some reverse engineering by beginning with the skills recruiters are looking for in new college graduates and then matching them up with certain undergraduate degrees. Below is a table containing two lists of skills that are representative of what you will find out there when you look for career advice. As you look at the lists there should be few surprises. Common to both of the lists are communications skills and an international perspective that shows up as globally minded or foreign language skills. It is just common sense that as the globalization process “flattens” the world there will be an increasing demand for those who can effectively communicate with others from around the world. There is also nothing in these lists suggesting that an undergraduate business degree is the best way to develop these skills and abilities. There are many ways to hone those critical thinking and teamwork skills while at the university, and visionary qualities, self-motivation, and leadership are unlikely to be related to one’s major. This was a point driven home in an article in the Yale Alumni Magazine where one of the trustees noted that “A liberal arts education teaches you how to think: how to analyze, how to read, how to write, how to develop a persuasive argument. These skills are used every day in business.[2]”

Critical thinking	Quantitative skills
Communication	Communications skills
Visionary qualities	Computer skills
Self-motivation	Marketing/selling skills
Proficiency with information Scientific skills
Globally Minded	Foreign language skills
Teamwork	Leadership skills

A third feature of the list is that it looks very much like a list of skills that a student in economics would develop during a course of studies. Below is a list of skills that appeared on Virginia Tech’s Economics Department web page, and you can see the overlap between this and the lists of skills recruiters are looking for in college graduates.

The good news is that there are some payoffs to the economics degree. You can see that while the salaries of young workers with an Economics degree may not be up there with those with a Pharmacy or Engineering degree, they are certainly competitive with business majors.

	Women	Men
Accounting	$35,744	$39,097
Business	$30,163	$34,938
Communications	$27,317	$30,768
Economics	$33,597	$36,656
Engineering	$43,274	$43,518
Mathematics	$35,052	$36,828
Pharmacy	$47,506	$48,979
Psychology	$26,339	$30,657

So what are you to do? Here is a little advice for you as you plan out your course of studies. Be purposeful in your choice of courses while you are here. Think less about taking a standardized program of studies and more about getting a head start on that “vision” thing by beginning to craft out a program of studies that will position you well for graduation. Think about what you want to be in your senior year as you begin your most important marketing job – marketing yourself. Will you be in a better position if you have just taken the courses you were required to for a business degree or if you demonstrated some proficiency at using information and critical thinking skills in selecting a set of courses that make you very marketable? It’s your call, but I think you can see how these are two very different, and viable, routes to the same place.

To give you a concrete example of the choice, consider the situation facing the student interested in international business. One option would be to enroll in the College of Business’s International Business program and follow through the courses listed for that concentration. Another would be to look at the world and think about positioning yourself for the future with a major in Economics. If you chose the BA route, you would need to take 11 courses in Economics for your major, which would give you 29 elective courses to choose “purposefully”. When you take these courses you will need to continually ask yourself the question: how does this course prepare me for life after graduation? If you are interested in international business, it would seem to make sense to work on gaining proficiency in a language of a country that will be important in the future. As we head into the 21^st century, one that many have already dubbed the Chinese century, it might make sense exploring Chinese. If you decide on that route, you should also think about choosing your general education courses purposefully. If you are going to study Chinese you might want to think about Asian history or religion as a letters course, maybe an international Politics or the Politics of China, and even a study abroad semester in China.

This is only one of the possibilities, and if you are interested in exploring the Economics option, you should check out the department web site where you will find information on the department and the three degrees offered. You should also track down Art Mead who is the Department’s advisor and would be happy to talk with any of you about majoring or minoring in economics.

[1] Tristan Mabry, “Economics, Once a Perplexing Subject, Is Enjoying a Bull Run at Universities,” Wall Street Journal, 1998

[2] Warren Goldstein, “What would Plato do? A (semi-) careerist defense of the liberal arts,” Yale Alumni Magazine, July/August 2005

[3] Daniel Hecker, “Earnings of college graduates: women compared with men,” Monthly Labor Review March 1998