The Best Undergraduate Degree Part 1

This degree:

• Keeps your GPA high
• Grants you work opportunities after four years
• Is a top scorer in MCAT and LSAT
• Lets you earn more in average than an Engineering degree
• Allows for an easy double majors or multiple minors
• Is in demand
• Is one of the best degrees to take to PhD level
• Has a relatively light course load
• Is normally in the low side of admission average
• And is pretty interesting to learn about. C’mon, what else would you ask for.?!

Any guesses?

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It’s Economics.

You might be thinking, how does an economics degree manage to accomplish all of that? I’ll answer it but let me just entertain you guys with this joke because I’m about to get all technical.

A mathematician, an accountant and an economist apply for the same job.
The interviewer calls in the mathematician and asks “What do two plus two equal?” The mathematician replies “Four.” The interviewer asks “Four, exactly?” The mathematician looks at the interviewer incredulously and says “Yes, four, exactly.”
Then the interviewer calls in the accountant and asks the same question “What do two plus two equal?” The accountant says “On average, four – give or take ten percent, but on average, four.”
Then the interviewer calls in the economist and poses the same question “What do two plus two equal?” The economist gets up, locks the door, closes the shade, sits down next to the interviewer and says, “What do you want it to equal”?

 

First Off, What on Earth is Economics?

Economics isn’t business. It’s not a humanity. It’s not stats. It’s not the study of money. It’s a social science. Economics the study of behavior under scarcity and other outside forces. If you won a random $1,000, where would you spend it on? Would you even spend it? How would your spending behavior differ if you instead lost a random $1,000? Economics is where artistic meets scientific meets mathematical. An economics degree isn’t just for CEOs or math geeks or aspiring law students. An Economics degree can enhance a lot of career paths, as I would show in a moment.

Many Universities offer opportunities for an Economics degree. There are two streams of undergraduate economics that are standardized across the country, often both available in Universities. It’s sometimes called the BA program and the BSc program. In the University of Calgary, it’s the BA Program and the BA Honors program. We’ll stick with BA and BA Honors because we’ll be doing a case study of economics in the U of C. The difference between the two programs is that the BA Honors often requires a higher GPA, is more demanding, is more math based, and lets you receive a masters degree in only one year after 4 years in pursuit of your BA.

Is Econ hard?

Hard is pretty darn subjective. Nevertheless, Economics is a Liberal Art. Liberal Arts programs are designed to be “chill.” Let’s take the Econ program at the U of C for instance to show what I mean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being an art, there are no labs in economics. In university, Engineering courses and lab science (chemistry, Health Science, etc) courses usually comprise of lectures for 3 hours a week and a lab for 2-3 hours on top of that. Most other courses only require lectures and possibly an hour tutorial time extra. Another advantage of the liberal arts is the amount of option courses it gives you. Options just mean that you get to choose anything. Here’s a break down of course types in  University of Calgary programs:

Program name required courses + options/total number of courses (40 is standard)

BA Economics 16 required 24 options/40

BA Honors Economics 23 required 17 options/40

BSc Computer Science 24 required 16 options/40

BSc Honors Biochemistry 32 required 8 options/40

BFA Drama 23 required 17 options/40

BSc Mechanical Engineering 45 required 0 options/45

BComm Finance 31 required 9 options/40

BA Honors Philosophy 22 required 18 options/40

BA International Relations 21 required 19 options/40

Bachelor of Nursing 36 required 4 options/40

As you can see BA programs afford you a lot of options. Options mean that you can tailor classes based on your interest, keeping your GPA ideal. But what separates Economics from other BAs?

It pays well. Really well.

 

How well? Stay tuned for Part 2.

 

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