Would you like to do graduate work in economics? Here’s some advice:
§ Prepare yourself by taking plenty of math courses. You will need a more-than-basic knowledge of calculus, matrix algebra, probability theory, mathematical statistics, differential equations, and real analysis. Here are the math courses taken by a recent undergraduate preparing for a Ph.D. program in economics:
In her first
semester at graduate school, this same student reported: “I've used every bit
of math that I took--Calculus I, II, and III, Differential Equations,
Foundations of Higher Math, Linear Algebra, Statistics--and I've used all of it
a lot already. My advice to anyone going
to an Economics PhD program is to… double major in Math and Economics...”
§ Economics is a social science; an economist needs to know something about psychology, history, sociology, political science, and anthropology (and preferably a bit of philosophy and biology, as well). Pick social science courses that you think are really interesting—these courses will help you discover the kind of work you want to do as an economist.
§ A computational revolution is sweeping economics, as cheap computing power offers the possibility of doing whole new kinds of analyses. Languages such as Java, C++, and Python have become widely used, and all are taught in MTSU computer science courses. Personally, I would recommend Python as the best language for most aspiring economists—among its attractions is the fact that it is open-source and can be downloaded gratis. MATLAB has become an extremely popular numerical computation package. Since it is a bit expensive a student might wish to learn how to write MATLAB code by using the (mostly compatible) open-source package GNU Octave. For statistical work, R provides an open-source platform with an astounding number of advanced procedures, written by the world’s greatest statisticians—I recommend it highly. Other widely used statistical packages (available somewhere at MTSU) include SAS, STATA, LIMDEP, TSP, and RATS. SAS is the most widely used (especially in industry) and is the best choice for data manipulation; STATA has recently emerged as the favorite of many researchers because of its advanced procedures and ease of use. For theoretical work, the symbolic algebra packages Mathematica and Maple have proven to be very useful; you might wish to check with the Math department to learn which instructors use these packages in their classes. (see also Software for Economists)