Why Study Economics

Economics is an insightful study of how people behave and organizations operate under constraints of resources.  It provides powerful tools to understand and analyze many aspects of our lives and help us to be an informed, perceptive decision-maker.  Decision-making is an integral part of business or governmental organizations.  The economics department at Georgia State University offers a modern curriculum to prepare you for future endeavors and to meet unforeseen challenges successfully.  There are many good reasons to study economics:

 

(1) To be a knowledgeable worker, consumer, investor, and citizen
Economics training helps develop methodical ways of thinking and problem solving which can be used in our lives as effective members of the workforce, responsible and knowledgeable citizens, informed consumers, savers, and investors, and perceptive participants in the global economy.  

(2) To acquire a set of important skills for career-building
A key element for getting a job and succeeding in a career is your set of desirable skills.  Economics training offers individuals a terrific set of marketable skills.  They include written communication and presentation skills, quantitative communication skills, and analytical problem-solving skills.  Learning to communicate your ideas in writing and presentation to a broad range of audiences is a key component of our economic curriculum.  Economics majors are also trained to understand numerical data and recognize their importance, use a variety of data analysis and computing tools, and communicate quantitative information to others.   Moreover, there is no better major to acquire analytical problem-solving skills than economics.  Economic principles can be applied to identify the core elements of many problems confronting business and government and to formulate effective decisions to tackle those problems.  

(3) To seek employment that interests you
Finding employment that interests you can be crucial for a successful and fulfilling career.  Studying economics is exciting and fun, and it opens a wide variety of career opportunities for individuals.  Economics graduates have gone on to rewarding professional careers in industry, trade, banking and finance, law, consulting, government, research, and education.  The career flexibility is coupled with the fact that economists often receive high salaries.  

(4) To gain a solid foundation for other advanced fields of study
Because of vigorous and comprehensive training, economics majors are sought by not only employers but also graduate schools.  Graduate study in law, business, politics, or public policy commonly demands logical thinking abilities and strong investigative and quantitative skills.  Indeed, economics is one of the most highly respected academic disciplines.

(5) FLEXIBLE
With the major changes that have taken place in the world of work, the rapid changes in technology and globalization, it is not uncommon for individuals to make several career changes during their lives. Today's hot specialized degree has often become tomorrow's target for downsizing. Companies that were relatively unchallenged in the domestic market have suffered as a result of global competition. As a result, experts in career development recommend that one seriously consider a flexible degree such as economics.

(6) REWARDING
Majors in economics receive average starting salaries that are in the upper range of salary offers made to majors with other business degrees and significantly above most majors in other areas of the liberal arts.

(7) CHALLENGING
Economics is a discipline in which you learn a unique way of thinking. This unique way of thinking is a primary reason that economics is also a flexible degree. Economic concepts have been applied to a number of different areas that would, at first, seem totally unrelated to economics. However, the concepts of economics are critical to finding solutions to problems in a wide variety of areas.

(8) RICH IN SKILLS

(a) Analytical/Critical Thinking Skills - There is no better major for learning analytical problem solving than economics. You have learned how to take a problem, and break it down into its separate elements (ceteris paribus). You have learned that economics has a core set of tools that can be applied in a wide variety of settings (the same tools apply to both consumer and firm behavior, for example). All of business is problem solving, and this is the expertise you have learned from the
logical constructs in economics.

(b) Quantitative Skills (Mathematical and Statistical Technics) - This means the ability to understand numbers and their importance, and the ability to communicate quantitative information to others. All the graphs in economics represent quantitative concepts, and as an economics major you will certainly have no fear of graphs. Further, many classes use explicit numerical problem solving. You also have the opportunity to explicitly learn a wide range of statistical and computing tools, in Statistics, and Econometrics. You have the opportunity to explicitly learn a broad range of mathematical tools in Mathematical Economics, Game Theory, Experimental Economics and a wide variety of other courses.

 

(c) Comminication Skills (Written and Oral) - This means communicating with a variety of audiences in a variety of formats. In economics, you will learn to communicate your ideas in writing- through essay exams, papers, and homework. In addition, the small class sizes in the upper level classes allows you the opportunity to speak in class. All of these tools improve your interpersonal communication skills. Some classes also present the opportunity to work with other students explicitly.