Economics Major
Department of Economics
Division of Social Sciences
At its heart, economics is a social science that seeks to explain human behavior. Far from being limited to questions of the demand and supply for goods and services, economics seeks to answer questions spanning a wide range of issues. These include poverty, discrimination, crime, pollution, education,international trade, taxation, natural resource management, and many other areas. Unlike the study of business management which focuses on improvements for a single firm or industry, economics takes a societal view that examines the impact of decisions or policies on individuals, households, businesses,taxpayers, the environment, and the country or the world as a whole.
In order to examine the impacts of policies from a societal view, economic analysis relies on a highly quantitative analytical method that requires knowledge of microeconomic and macroeconomic theory,mathematical modeling, statistics, and logic. Graduates who have mastered the “economic way of thinking” are prepared to move on into successful careers. Our majors have gone on to careers in law,business, finance, foreign service, government, consulting, education, and research. For those wishing to pursue graduate school, Economics majors tend to score very well on entrance exams. Nationwide,Economics graduates tend to score better than majors from business management, political science,international studies, psychology and virtually every other field of study on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), Law School Admission Test (LSAT), and the Graduate Management Admission Test(GMAT). Many of our majors have successfully completed graduate school in these areas.