Studying Economics as an Undergraduate
Contents
Economics was the subject Richard Joseph Spinelli took up as an undergraduate at Boston College, and the major built around it follows a sequence that American departments share to a notable degree. The American Economic Association offers three ways to define the field: the study of scarcity, the study of how people use resources and respond to incentives, or the study of decision making.1 A student who asks what an economics major is will find that the answer lies less in any one definition than in the order of courses departments require.
What economics studies
The association divides the discipline by scale. The study of individual decisions is microeconomics, and the study of the economy as a whole is macroeconomics. A microeconomist might look at product variety, while a macroeconomist might look at asset bubbles.1
The field also reaches into other subjects. The association lists health, gender, the environment, education and immigration among its applications, and it points readers to the JEL codes, the classification system economists use to sort the topics they study.1 Economists work with theoretical models or empirical data to evaluate programs, study behavior and explain social patterns.
The shape of the major
A 2023 study by Emily Marshall, Anthony Underwood and Abigail Hyde of Dickinson College catalogued the requirements of the major at most of the 793 American colleges and universities that conferred an economics bachelor’s degree in 2019.2 The authors describe a long standing consensus on the broad requirements: foundational courses in principles, intermediate theory and quantitative methods; breadth through topical electives; depth through upper level electives; and a capstone in which students apply what they have learned through research and writing.
That structure explains why the major can look alike from one campus to the next. Titles and course numbers vary, but a student who transfers between departments usually finds the same ladder, with principles at the bottom and theory and methods in the middle.
Principles
Almost every program starts in the same place. The study found that 99.3 percent of economics degrees require a principles course. Most split it into two semesters, one for microeconomics and one for macroeconomics, while a minority combine both in a single semester.2 Where the courses are separate, most programs let students take them in either order.
Intermediate theory
The second rung is intermediate microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, required by about 95 percent of degrees.2 These courses revisit the principles material with more formal tools, and they serve as prerequisites for most upper level electives. The study found that baccalaureate colleges were less likely than other types of institutions to require them.
Calculus
Mathematics is where programs diverge most. Sixty nine percent of degrees in the study require single variable calculus, and 63 percent teach the intermediate theory courses with calculus as a prerequisite. Around 12 percent also require multivariable calculus.2
Weighted by the number of degrees each program confers, the picture is more mathematical still. The authors estimate that the typical graduate took single variable calculus with a probability of 82 percent and calculus based intermediate theory with a probability of 78 percent.2 Part of the reason is that doctoral universities and liberal arts colleges, which together conferred about 88 percent of economics degrees in the sample year, are more likely to require calculus. For a student asking whether the major is hard, that is the most concrete answer the data give: in most programs it is a mathematical major.
Statistics and econometrics
Statistics is nearly universal, required by 92 percent of degrees. Econometrics, the application of regression and related methods to economic data, has grown fastest. The study found that 54 percent of degrees require a basic econometrics course, up from 41 percent in 2010, and that a typical graduate had about a 63 percent chance of taking one.2 The authors tie the change to a discipline that has become increasingly empirical.
Electives and the capstone
Beyond the core, the major opens up. Students choose electives in applied fields, and some departments require particular ones. In the study, 15.5 percent of degrees required a political economy course and 11.3 percent a course in the history of economic thought or economic history.2 A senior capstone appeared in 44.4 percent of degrees overall, and liberal arts colleges required one much more frequently than doctoral universities, 64 percent against 31 percent.
The STEM question
Whether economics counts as a STEM major depends on how a program is classified. The federal Classification of Instructional Programs lists several economics codes. In 2012 the Department of Homeland Security added Econometrics and Quantitative Economics, code 45.0603, to its list of STEM designated programs, while other economics codes remained outside it.2 That code grew from 1.2 percent of economics degrees conferred in 2012 to 22.4 percent in 2019. STEM designated programs are much more likely to require multivariable calculus, 52 percent against 5 percent, and econometrics, 88 percent against 56 percent. The Heights reported in 2018 that Boston College moved its economics major under the econometrics and quantitative economics code, a change that lets international graduates apply for a 24 month extension of their work training.6
A field among majors
Economics is not normally classed as a business major. The federal Digest of Education Statistics counts it inside social sciences and history, a field that conferred 151,109 bachelor’s degrees in the 2021 to 2022 academic year, compared with 375,418 in business.3 The Dickinson study likewise leaves business and managerial economics, which carries a separate business code, out of its definition of the major.2 Inside Higher Ed reported in 2023 that men who major in economics outnumber women by about two and a half to one, and that an experiment in 20 departments raised the share of women mainly at liberal arts colleges.7
Wendy Stock, writing in the American Economic Review in 2017, found that the economics share of American bachelor’s degrees had been flat for more than a decade, while its share of second majors was growing. Her data, covering 2001 through 2014, showed first majors in mathematics, engineering, computer science and the life sciences pairing with economics as a second major.4
Where graduates go
The association’s careers page says that roles in business are the most common destination for economics majors, and that graduates also succeed in law, medicine, government, nonprofits and international relations, as well as in academic work. It adds that economics students are increasingly enrolling in law school.5
How one department puts these pieces together is set out in economics at Boston College, which follows the catalog course by course. The university itself is described in Boston College, its religious tradition in Jesuit higher education, and the education page ties the portal together.
