Undergraduate

Economics is the science of choice! It is the study of how people, firms and governments make choices in the face of scarce resources.

These choices can be personal:

• Do I go to class or not?
• Should I eat Ramen noodles tonight or take my significant other out for a nice dinner?
• Or should I accept a job at one firm or another?

They can involve crucial public policy questions:

• Do we provide public health care?
• Should we increase the age of Social Security eligibility?
• Should interest rates increase?

It is a rigorous discipline, but it combines many different skills – theory, statistics, math, history, public policy and business decisions. This makes it valuable for analyzing the choices.

Making the choice to major in economics can be lucrative. Almost every salary survey places economics majors in the top 10 to 15 highest-paying majors both upon career entry and also by mid-career, even above business majors. This may be surprising to see economics ranked in the same tier as engineering, healthcare, and IT, but since the discipline combines social science coursework that is people- and society-oriented, data skills, and critical analysis, the program features all of the skills employers want.

The labor market shows that firms value the skills and abilities of economics majors and are willing to pay well for those skills.

We are often asked “What can I do with my Economics Degree?” The economics degree makes great preparation for many different careers. Economics majors are employed by a wide variety of businesses (financial services companies, tech companies, retail, and real estate to name a few), nonprofits and government agencies. See our undergraduate alumni page for some sample jobs in which our graduates have been employed.

For further information, talk with our undergraduate economics advisors and see the section of the American Economics Association website oriented toward undergraduates. The advisors are also your resource for more information about our programs.