Economics
A comprehensive guide to studying Economics at university.
- - "Not as much work as a lot of my friends studying essay subjects"
- - "The maths is challenging and there's a lot of it but it's quite interesting to see how it can be used to model human behaviour. It goes into a lot more detail than A Level"
- - "The statistics & econometrics part of my degree have definitely helped in my current financial consultancy job"
- - "Too much maths! It just seems really unnecessary and too abstract a lot of the time"
- - "Very little current affairs. I applied expecting to get to debate new policies like at A-Level but the course is mostly theoretical except for my optional modules"
- - "The social life isn't great. Most of my classmates are obsessed with getting banking internships"
- - "I wish I had studied something more practical like computer science. Most of the economics I learned was just too theoretical to use in an actual job"
Economics at uni is nothing like A Level 😲
You'll revisit all your favourite models - demand & supply, perfect competition, AS-AD...but now with [b]TONNES[/b] of maths 😅 Often a big shock to unprepared students.
You'll do [b]significantly[/b] more maths than writing and will often ask yourself: "What's the point of all this maths?! I already know all these models from A Level, the maths doesn't seem to be adding much."
And you'll learn about [b]econometrics[/b] - the use of complex statistics and computer programming to make real-world predictions and analyse economic data 📈 📊 Econometrics is the stuff used by Central Banks and Goldman Sachs to predict where the economy is going and make the best possible decisions 👍
You'll have the occasional essay to submit and current affairs topic to debate in class, but most of your degree will be maths 🤓 Usually very theoretical, with limited application to real-world events - often a big disappointment to uninformed students 😶
[b]Warning:[/b] unless your course specifically offers courses on finance/investment, you won't learn much about finance or investment at all - these topics are quite separate from economics. Most of what you learn in an econ degree is way too theoretical to be used in a real-life finance/investment job.
Economics graduates often end up in relatively well-paid [b]Finance/Investment/Consultancy[/b] positions 🏦 or working for [b]government[/b] on [b]economic policy[/b] 🏛
Top employment destinations include: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, KPMG and Deloitte.
But don't be fooled ❌ it's less the Economics degree helping you get in, more because Economics students just tend to apply to these sorts of jobs.
You're definitely not limited to these fields either. Economics graduates can enter most professions, except for those requiring technical skills (e.g. law or software engineering).