I’m going to a community college right now. But I’m going to be transferring to a 4 year liberal arts college next year. It allows students to basically do as many majors as they want, so, I’m going to continue to study communication and poli-sci, but, I’ve found out that I can do a combination major instead of just a straight-up poli-sci degree so I’ll be studying poli-sci and economics.
I’m finishing up a statistics course right now. I’m just wondering just how much math do I need if I want to study economics in college? I already took a basic economics course over the winter and not much math was required for that class but I imagine for the higher up level classes that more math would be needed.
For an undergrad degree, all that I was required of was basic lower division calculus and statistics. You will take a number of econometrics classes, though.
I’ve looked at the carriculum for a number of M.A. and PhD programs in economics, and although I don’t remember the exact classes the math was pretty similar to what an undergraduate engineering student would have to take. Also, I remember there were a lot of programming classes, possibly for a foundation in modelling.
You have to talk to a councilor and see what the requirements are. You’re going to need at least one lower division calculus class (or more, depending on the university). But, usually the lower division calculus you need to take for econ. are easy and is just an extension of algebra (it’s not as deep as a dedicated calculus class… mostly it just goes through the algebra of dirivatives).
“No, but Riemann integrals are used in dynamic analysis.”
What about complex analysis and Cauchy integrals? I think I would find it amusing if doing graduate economics turns out to be a less exciting way of repeating my physics degree!
There are really four parts to your question: how much math am I required to take to earn the degree, how much math do I need to pass upper level econ courses, how much math/what type of math scores via placement tests do I need to get in to graduate degrees and do you need lots of math to understand economics.
Your math content depends on where you study. At GMU the math load is basic, (one-year of calc, one year of stat and an econometrics class). Many colleges demand more.
If you stick to courses with low math prerequisites, you will be fine. There are resources to help you. Yet, I would venture to say that the majority of people who struggle with economics in fact struggle with the math.
You need very high placement test scores to get into economics graduate programs
I teach math for an income, but I don’t think you need much math to understand economcis
A lot. You’re going to take at least 2 semesters of calculus, a semester of linear matrices, linear algebra, mathematical economics, and your major economics courses will involve a lot of math as well (especially classes like intermediate microeconomics and industrial organization). Some programs, though, require more math than others.
Real analysis and convex analysis are useful if you want to continue to graduate school. If you can fit it in, I would also take a course in topology and fourier analysis, as well as as much statistics as possible. By the end of your 4 years, you should be able to read a journal article in applied econometrics and understand most, if not all of it.