What kind of reputation does the economics department have? Most universities have economics in the business school but at A&M it's in liberal arts. I know they offer a BA or a BS.

Econ is great at A&M. It's one of the most competitive majors in the College of Liberal Arts. It is housed there because it is a social science. You have the BS or BA option, like you said, as well as a 3+2 program which gives you the option to complete a Bachelors and Masters in 5 years, with the Masters being from the Bush School.

Highly recommend it. Talk to Sarah Ura in Econ if you're interested. She's an advisor and explains why it belongs in Liberal Arts quite well.

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What kind of reputation does the economics department have? Most universities have economics in the business school but at A&M it's in liberal arts. I know they offer a BA or a BS.

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Econ and polisci are segregated from the rest of the campus over in the Allen building because of all the wacky adventures going on.

It's a happening place.

Anyway, always get a BS if it is offered.

I would definitely get a BS. I like Econ because it is related to business and finance. A lot of successful people have Econ degrees but they went to ivys. I'm not sure what an Econ degree from a large public school looks like. I will eventually get an MBA or masters in finance. I don't like that it is in liberal arts but does it even say liberal arts on the diploma?

BS is great, but if you want to study foreign language, a BA is a better option. Just depends on what your career looks like.

Why are you hesitant because it is in Liberal Arts?

I just don't like that it is in liberal arts because of the connotation associated with liberal arts degrees. I want a degree that gives me quantitative skills, not so much qualitative. I want a job in business, most likely banking or energy. If it is just classified under liberal arts but doesn't show on the diploma or anything than I don't see a problem with it.

There are some guys over on the Job Network board that report having problems finding jobs with economics degrees. I know the department sounds great and they provide a long list of jobs that you are qualified to do, however do employers see the value in the degree?

Liberal Arts only has a negative connotation to those who are uneducated about its benefits. Do some research on the skills employers are looking for and how they feel about LA majors. Employers consistently say they LOVE having LA majors because they learn job skills, but they also are phenomenal with coworkers, management, and customers. Even many technical companies say they would oftentimes prefer LA majors because they are such quick learners. They'd rather a LA major who is teachable than a STEM major who has been "programmed" already.

STEM majors are great. They are necessary. LA majors are also necessary, and YOU decide your career prospects. Don't join the anti-LA group and decide the majors are worthless. It's not what employers think, and it isn't accurate. If you are worried, add a major to narrow down your skill or add a minor.

People skills, writing abilities, and communication skills are priceless. Add a study abroad experience (LA sends the most students abroad each year by far), a foreign language, and a minor...you're an extremely competitive applicant anywhere you go.

I hope that didn't sound harsh, by the way. I was the recruiter for the College of Liberal Arts the past year, so I've read tons of studies and spoken to several companies (technical and otherwise) who say they just don't understand the LA stigma because they love their LA majors.

Just know, you can be highly successful with an ECON degree. Stay in contact with the career center during your time, get an internship, and you are in good shape.

I considered getting a double major with economics and physics at one point. I have looked into ECON at TAMU, and I would say that you should for sure get the BS if you are worried about the quantitative education.

I would also say that it would be prudent to go beyond what the ECON dept requires for math courses. A math minor would be very attainable, and it would be valuable. Having a better mathematics education is ALWAYS a benefit for both those pursuing jobs in business and others looking to go to grad school.

If grad school in economics is a possibility, you need to take a full calculus sequence, differential equations, linear algebra, and real analysis (this is no joke, the math in grad school Econ is heavy)

I definitely understand the importance of LA majors and I've seen the recruiting reports for all LA majors.

"good to have choices. LA majors listen up."

That was quoted from a post on the job board early today in response to an engineer asking for advice on which job offer to accept. It's just connotations such as the one implied in the quote are the reasons that LA is looked down upon. LA is viewed as easy, I don't know if that is true or not but I don't want to be told that I picked an easy major.

I 100% understand your concern. Trust me, I heard the same things from parents and students constantly. Ultimately, it comes down to where your talents lie.

If you LOVE engineering, and you are skilled in the subject, absolutely be an engineer. However, if you love writing, and you're talented at it, you should be an LA major. Where you are passionate, you are innovative. Many LA majors had the same concern as you, and chose what they were told were "practical majors", and they hated it. Consequently, many of them were dismissed from those other colleges. They were very successful in LA once they found what they were actually excited to study.

One of the students who I think is a great example of LA success is Ryan Malphurs. I haven't met him personally, but he was a student who was a LA major and was able to be very successful because he chose a major where he was talented. http://taratrask.com/ryan-malphurs-phd

There are many stories of students like the above who were innovative with their LA major. It's not engineering- you might not have the same direct path to a job. But you do have the same ability to be successful and make money. Do what you love- not what you think will impress others.

I understand what you're saying and I have friends who aren't good at and don't like math and other "practical" subjects. I'm sure they will go on to do great things in LA. It probably has to do with the whole right-brain, left-brain thing but I definitely like math, finance, numbers and quantitative measures. And I'm good at those calculations. Writing is not one of my strong suits and I don't excel at it.

I'm not questioning the importance or practicality of LA. Back to my original question though, how does economics at A&M fare in the business realm of analytics, finance, math, etc?

Good luck in whatever you choose!

If you want to know some former student examples of econ majors, Sarah Ura or Roy Mitchell would be great resources. Josh is great too, but he is new so he might not be as familiar with the alum.

https://econweb.tamu.edu/undergraduate/advising.htm

I can't speak to your questions on Econ at TAMU, but Liberal Arts doesn't equal bad at math. I started and was mostly successful as a science major, but just didn't enjoy it. I switched to LA and had to develop my writing skills, which were definitely not a strength for me going into it. Just because something isn't a strength doesn't mean it can't become one with work.

As others have mentioned, a BS will include more math/statistics as part of the degree and possibly adding a minor or two (math/stats or business) will help show your other strengths and abilities. Also mentioned before, if LA is on your degree, it won't be what doesn't get you a job.

Your performance on the GRE/GMAT, undergrad GPA, etc. are all taken into account for grad school. Better scores and grades should get you in over someone who just has "business" on their degree.

In the end, talk with your advisor, career center staff, faculty, and potential employers to get a better idea of what matters and what will help you achieve your goals.

Oh I was also going to say that many people in STEM majors couldn't do many of the things that LA majors do (and vice versa), but for some reason STEM majors are seen as the "hard" majors and LA as "easy." I've seen many of them struggle in basic composition and history. They wouldn't make it in higher level, writing intensive courses. Similarly, they may be able to grasp a complex mathematical or physics concept, but would be utterly confused by a sociological or philosophical theory.

I assume that the current thoughts on the differences between areas has to do with less people being "geared" towards STEM success and yet more people trying to get jobs in those "good" fields. There is a definite perception of success that comes with them as a result of the demand for grads in these fields. Again, it doesn't mean that they are harder, just that society has placed value on them because of our current needs. The reputation is further lifted since fewer people may be naturally orientated toward or have developed the skills over time for those programs. Many end up realizing that they never had a shot at being successful and/or happy in one of those programs, so they change to something that better suits them. STEM grads often lack many of the skills that LA grads have though. I too have spoken to business leaders who say they need people prepared for teamwork, communication (oral and written), and critical thinking/problem solving (even in tech fields).

Just remember that all higher education used to be what we consider liberal arts, but liberal arts still includes study of math and science. Those with a LA education were those who were preparing to take on leadership positions (this is still true too when you look at the education of today's leaders). Many LA disciplines are statistics based today as well, they just aren't solely focused on quantitative skills.

I'm graduating in May with a B.S. in Econ and have a job lined up for when I graduate. Never once in any of my conversations with recruiters did ECON being in liberal arts come up. I don't think most of them even knew that ECON is a LA degree.

I just didn't advertise on my resume or in an interview that I was graduating from the college of LA.

All majors are easy except for a couple of the engineering majors and probably physics.

However, the two liberal arts majors that don't enjoy the stigma of, say, English majors would be Econ and polisci. That depends on what you want to do, of course.

Again, BA's have the heaviest amount of stigma. Always get your BS if that is offered.

Always get a BS.

Always.

You don't learn a language in a classroom. You learn it in the field. It's why border patrol agents get fluent in Spanish rather quickly and have mastery over the language far quicker than those who spent four years studying the language in a classroom.

Edit: ah, this got deleted. Someone said get a minor in math. Don't. No one cares about minors. If you want math on your degree, double major in it. I don't look at minors at all when hiring someone and no one cares that I minored in stats (which is easy as hell, but I needed the classes to figure out what I was doing in my majors courses). A math double major would catch someone's attention when looking at your resume.

Still, I really wouldn't worry about that. Do what you want to do. The liberal arts stigma is directed towards English majors, theater majors, and so on.

[This message has been edited by BoxerCXXIX (edited 3/13/2014 11:01a).]

So let's look at the degree plan, and we will see exactly how well A&M Econ prepares you for a quantitative career:

From the Econ Website: BS Economics

Quantitative Methods: 15 hours
CSCE 203 or INFO 209
MATH 141 or 166
MATH 131, 142 or 151
STAT 211 or 303

So let's start with CSCE 203. This is an introduction to programming in FORTRAN. If you want a quantitative career in finance, you bet you are going to need programming skills. Honestly, one class in programming isn't really enough, but at least you will have some programming knowledge that you can build off of. Programming is one of those things you can pick up yourself if you are dedicated.

Now let's look at the rest of this list. Notice that the highest level math class required is MATH 151. This is Calculus 1 for
engineers and science majors. MATH 141/142 are business math. Your necessary mathematics education for a quantitative career will leave MATH 141/142 so far behind that it is completely pointless to take them.

If you go back to my last post I mentioned you need a full calculus sequence, differential equations, and linear algebra to be competitive for graduate school. Actually, I would say you need this if you want to even attempt graduate school. So the extra courses you need on top of MATH 151 is MATH 152,251,308,323, and then a possible course in real analysis if you are getting really serious by senior year. Also necessary would be probability theory, MATH 411. After some looking, I found that the ECON FAQ section says the exact same thing I just did.

Statistics: STAT 211 is an introductory calculus based statistics class. Prerequisites are calculus 1 and 2. On top of this class you should be thinking about an econometrics course or two.

If your idea of a great job is going to Wall Street and being a Quant, then the minimum quantitative education listed in the degree plan will not get you there. If you are looking to open up as many doors as possible, then you should for sure be getting the Math minor. If you are looking at graduate school, then a math minor is pretty much mandatory unless you want to be 4 semesters behind in mathematics preparation.

Now, the idea of a quantitative job can be different to everybody. In my viewpoint, a true quantitative job will involve the use of mathematics and programming in order to solve complex financial problems. To others, the definition is different. Therefore, when you say a quantitative job, what do you truly mean by that? What is your definiton? This would help me understand things a bit better because if you are wanting a job with high level mathematics and programming along with finance, then I would recommend an applied math major.

BoxerCXXIX:

You are right. Physics is actually harder than engineering 10 fold. Just ask any engineer at this school, and they will either have no opinion or agree about this fact.

A BS over a BA is only important when there are drastic differences between the two. Sometimes, a school only offers a BA, but it is very similar or identical to the BS.

In this case, you are absolutely correct. A BS is a must, and it is not even debatable in my opinion.

New post to make sure incoming freshman reads it:

On the subject of language, when I say you learn it in the field... I mean it. My girlfriend is fluent in four languages. Spanish, Portuguese, and French (does English count now?). She isn't smarter than I am, she just traveled the world. She never took a foreign language in undergrad.

Not a one.

I didn't either and I am passable in Spanish because I volunteered at pro bono legal clinics and we mostly got Hispanics who couldn't speak a lick of English. You pick it up. Strange how it works.

Absolutely go for a BS degree over a BA. I chose BA for my political science degree because I thought the Spanish would be more helpful than the stats/computer courses (and that was the only discernible difference in the degree plans). I took 14 hours of Spanish but I am far from fluent - barely conversational, and getting less so every day because I don't have any opportunity to practice it. Languages are best learned in practical use, not a classroom. I took a statistics course my last semester of undergrad, to help prepare me for grad school, and it was one of the most useful courses I took in 4 years. If I could go back and do it again, I would absolutely go for the BS, and take Spanish classes as electives.

As far as being the College of Liberal Arts, I don't think any employer would hold this against you. Liberal Arts isn't listed on your actual diploma, though it would be on your transcript. But again, if an employer is looking for someone with an Econ background, the college in which it is housed won't matter.

I disagree that a minor is useless. I do agree, though, that if you are going to go for a minor, you should definitely consider how much more it will take for a double major. A subject like math certainly looks better as a second major than as a minor. You can cross-apply many courses and, if you plan it correctly, still graduate in 4 years with no problem.

[This message has been edited by LuckyDuck (edited 3/13/2014 1:58p).]

Major in applied math- economics track. I believe that is an option. This is a better choice than the minor, but the minor would definitely not be useless if you absolutely must have the Economics major.

The double major with economics and applied math may be pretty simple to arrange in 4 years considering I believe both degrees have some elective flexibility.

A minor might be good if you actually need the classes to understand your major more effectively. But no one cares about a minor on a resume. At least in my experience.

^ Yes minors don't usually open doors like a degree will, but they can still express to an employer that a person has an extra set of knowledge and/or skills to go along with their degree. The skills learned can definitely help supplement degree work and aid in the application of knowledge after college.

I graduated with an Econ degree with a minor in finance. It is a fantastic degree for entrepreneurial endeavors. I have been in the top 10 of Aggie100 a couple of times. My only recommendation would be a minor in accounting. I wish I had more accounting classes in school. I had to learn it the hard way.

As a current senior who with the rest of my classmates are finding it terribly difficult to land a job I would stay away.

That being said I have really enjoyed my self getting a BS in Econ at A&M but unless you do an internship or have another degree it's not very marketable.

My opinion: Great teachers, Great Program but only sign up if you plan on going to Grad school or law school right after!

Duck, how are your grades though?

If you're scraping by, I can see it would be difficult to compete with other majors.

No one has ever asked me my GPA besides law schools. My roommate had a high 3.something in Econ and he's selling cars.

Jobs are hard to come by for all recent grads.

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Duck, how are your grades though?

If you're scraping by, I can see it would be difficult to compete with other majors.

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3.1 GPA

Not great, but by no means bad

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No one has ever asked me my GPA besides law schools. My roommate had a high 3.something in Econ and he's selling cars.

Jobs are hard to come by for all recent grads.

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Jobs are definitely hard to come by right now. With econ, the good jobs are there, they just come by infrequently.

I'm a double master's, with a near perfect gpa. I just interviewed with a company that went line by line through my transcript. Apparently some people care about gpa.

[This message has been edited by vigna_ag (edited 3/20/2014 12:23p).]

Actually, GPA is very important. There are many companies that will trash a resume based on the gpa alone with no further consideration.

After landing that first job, things may become a bit easier, but for a person coming directly out of college, you would have to be crazy to think that your gpa will not be looked at. Just because the company didn't ask you about it doesn't mean they completely disregarded it.



[This message has been edited by Pennsylvania_Ag (edited 3/20/2014 2:56p).]

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I graduated with an Econ degree with a minor in finance. My only recommendation would be a minor in accounting.

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Thought the only minor Mays offered was just generic business.

Academy Sports and Outdoors Team Lead
Accenture Analyst
Acceptance Appliance Operations Manager
ADP Inc. Sales Representative
Aerofit Membership Consultant
Allen Williford & Seale Appraiser
Aon Hewitt Business Delivery Specialist
Apache Corporation Market Analyst
AXA Advisors Financial Planner
Bank of America Credit Analyst
Blue Sky USA Inventory Sales Specialist
Capital One Operations Analyst
CP Exploration Executive Intern
DHI Mortgage Loan Processor
Ethos Group Business Manager
Fishers Investments Investment Associate
Fluid Systems, Inc. Inside Sales Representative
Genvent IT Talent Recruiter
GRCOT PMO Intern
Infinite Direct Account Executive
JP Morgan Chase Personal Banker
Marcus & Millichap Commercial Real Estate Investment Agent
Mercer Client Servicer Analyst
Meritage Homes New Home Sales
Northwestern Mutual Financial Advisor
Outreach Strategists
Pearson Pearson Representative
Rallion Farms Ranch Manger
Raytheon Finance Leadership Development Program
Rocky Mountain Outdoor Center Guide
Sewell Automotive Sales Associate
TAMU Admissions Counselor
TAMU Admissions Counselor
Tenaris Global Trainee Program
Travelers Insurance Underwriter
TXU Energy Analyst
United Airlines Revenue Management
Verizon Sales Agent
Weatherford Training & Competency Administration
Wisenbaker Builder Services Designer


That is copied from the career center page. All of those jobs went to Econ majors who graduated Spring 2013. Seems pretty great to me. What am I missing?

What's missing is that just because those companies are listed as "hiring" doesn't mean they are actually hiring. It is hard to land a job out there right now, and you have to be experiencing it to actually understand the magnitude of the problem.

Those companies weren't just listed as hiring. That list is from the post graduation surveys. Every one of those companies/jobs were fillied by Econ majors who graduated last year from A&M.