I have just graduated in Economics, at Cardiff University, UK, and I would strongly advise against doing it. You learn absolutely nothing of worth and is incredibly tedius. All that is wanted is for you to is to manuiplulate equations of the economy. If you want to do a Phd doing political science or philosophy as an undergrad may be better since I am led to believe that they actually encourage thinking then; I could be wrong though. Still, if you are determined to do Economics I suggest doing a joint honours degree at first since if you don’t like one of the subjects you can ditch it in the second year and carry on pretty much as normal.
Another of my friends had a similar experience eslewhere in economics.
Here is the criticism I wrote and sent to the head of economics when I left:
My critique will be split into two sections: the degree structure itself and what is taught within it.
One of the main problems with the degree is that the first year gives you practically no idea what the second and third years are going to be like. How ever much you are told how much different and difficult the second and third years are going to be unless you are actually told what this will entail and, more importantly, experience something like it this one will have little idea. This is precisely the situation I found myself in: I greatly enjoyed the first year and then seriously considered leaving the course by November of my second year. I believe the generally low marks in the second year are a result of the disorientation between the first and second year.
To remedy this the weighting of the second and third years could be weighted more heavily towards the third, such as a 70% 30% split, which would allow more scope for orientating in the degree. A more satisfactory change would be to make A levels in Economics and Maths mandatory to enter the course and hit the ground running in the first year; this would possibly allow you to make the first year 10% of the degree to get people to work hard in that year because it’s worth something. This way people know what they are going to get from the beginning and so they could change their course if they wished starting the following year and only “waste” that year unlike the possible two in my case. Regarding that however, the fact that you can get a qualification, a diploma of some sort, after completing two years should be made widely known; I only found that out recently and could possibly have meant I exited the course after two years and started a Philosophy degree this year.
The assessment measures ought to be changed- the partial assessment in January for the double modules should be scrapped since it does not give sufficient time to really grapple with the subject and understand the course in its fullness. Also the task of writing short assessed essays, in for example Public Finance and the histories, does not allow you to write a competent answer since you literally don’t have space or time- a far better method would be to have one essay of a reasonable length, say 4000-5000 words, in which you could properly address the question and would give leave to demonstrate your analytical skills better.
At this point I will declare that I am biased against most of what is taught since I would consider myself as an adherent of the Austrian school but I don’t think this invalidates my criticisms. The main problem with the teaching can be seen with the axing of the Economic Thought and Methodology (ETM) module this year. I know Patrick O’Sullivan left but I am informed that he covered mainly the philosophers proper and could have been replaced by a member of the philosophy department if the will was there. That notwithstanding ETM, or a similar module, should be a mandatory module in the first year not an option in the first. Before studying a subject one needs to understand its nature and following that how it should be studied.; this never been done in my three years. Further, understanding the history of economic thought allows appreciation of different approaches and how ideas changed. Since this has not been done how can any of the students comment on the veracity of the approaches and results taught if they don’t have the sufficient tools by which to analyse them?
There are many implicit assumptions made in much of the material which goes unchallenged and is not expected to. One of the clearest examples of this is the mechanism of how money enters the economy: all we say is the government increases it so it shifts the AD curve and it results in x, y, z in the short run however the analysis assumes a deus ex machina introduction of money and ignores the step process of the new money’s entrance into the market place which would change the analysis. Another classic one is that the interest rate is the marginal product of capital. In all the macro equations this is assumed although never at once did we investigate the origin and nature of interest. The idea of a causal realist approach has seemingly been abandoned.
Further many concepts are not given a rigorous theoretical treatment, for example expectations formation; the adaptive theory falls prey to the regressus ad infinitum fallacy yet this was never pointed out. All a theory seems to be tested by is its empirical usefulness however if you are not taught the positive economic approach, a la Friedman, this makes no sense. It seems clear now that much of the teaching teaches us how to solve equations, given various assumptions, so that we understand the maths so then we can test them but we don’t attempt to test them. Granted there is the Empirical economics and Econometrics modules but the if the whole of the teaching revolves around this then testing should be an integral part of the different modules not just stand alone ones. Given this is what you really want to teach then you should change the degree title to Econometrics to give a hardcore three years training to become a modern economist.
The question though arises should economists be how they are at present or should they be different? The answer to this necessarily involves a value judgement and therefore needs a coherent body of the ethics to justify any position. This leads me neatly on to the implicit utilitarianism throughout the course. Given a certain question- the social cost of the factory is x and the social benefit of the factory is y, what should be done?- requires a value judgement about what the government should actually do. Even if the question has a caveat to “reach the efficient position” assumes really that everyone’s ends are really the same which is the bedrock of utilitarian philosophy; since ends are different, and can never in the real world be given, this again requires a value judgement. This issue is just entirely avoided. It is interesting to note here that the concept of perfect competition is a result of Frank Knight’s rather strange political philosophy.
In conclusion the first year needs to be more representative of the second year onwards and that the course needs to decide what it wants to be: a hardcore econometrics degree or an older style economics degree which necessarily involves more epistemology and political philosophy.