Sedna

uh, I get the math courses and all and the butt-kissing but... you gotta elaborate a bit on the others. What do you mean exactly by profit and do research?

tetrishead

Profit = get into a good graduate program

By do research I mean... uh, do research? In school. Where professors do things. They have opening for research assistants, you show interest in economics and take part in their research during the year and over summers, hopefully you get your name on a couple of things. Send said research you took part in to graduate admission committees.

Sedna

wow thank you that helps.

and would writing articles and stuff similar helps, because right now I'm already doing something over the faults of the welfare state, from it's implication to it's end, and it's like 10 pages long already.

and luckily I'm just starting undergrad

tetrishead

As an undergraduate you will never publish a paper in a respectable journal because nothing you do will be of consequence. I don't mean to sound like a dick, but I absolutely want to dash that dream for you now so you don't waste time on it--because a bad paper in a second-rate journal is worse than no research at all, and will hurt you badly even if you don't submit it assuming it's found.

If you're talking about a term paper, or whatever else the case may be, of course you're going to submit that to graduate programs. You'll submit your best paper or two most likely as part of a portfolio of work. That comes back to doing well in regular undergraduate econ classes, though. I doubt whatever you're writing in your first year will be any good, though. 10 pages long is nothing, plenty of very intelligent people have dedicated time to studying welfare and we are not a welfare state (unless you're going to look at certain European countries which have oil revenues that make a welfare state viable, and as a society they appear to have decided that the moral implications of not having a welfare state trump faults, making your analysis irrelevant and purely academic), so I'm not sure where you'd be going with that paper anyway.

Sedna

well, that paper is just a start, and by no means it's finished (I have the next 4 years to do so)

oh yeah it's not going to be published at all, it's strictly for something I'm gonna use for grad school admissions, yeah I'm not that talented.

So, besides term papers, doing the work of a professor's lackey, anything else I need to take notes on?

Milton Roark

Skim The Making of an Economist (it's a book). Your library should carry it.

kojak77aps

Does anyone know where Emory ranks as undergraduate econ. school?
probably going into law field and know emory as great history school but unsure about econ.
a little help anyone?

Quizbiz

^bump i want to know about emory too

RealM

It's really hard to rank any majors in the liberal arts but I seriously wouldn't worry about attending Emory for their economics program since they have many big recruiters due to their strength of Goizueta Business School.

Buffs2013

How would you all rank the economics programs within the state of Colorado? I'm curious because my parents are making me stay in-state for college. They want me close to home for at least the first couple years.

evo9

I know Boulder is pretty good. I went there for 3 years. The econ dept was very good, with great professors. It inspired me to be an econ major actually and now I am transferring to UCSD for econ/management science in the fall (the whole switching majors thing would not have been cost effective if I stayed out of state, so UCSD is cheaper)

But ya, I'd rank it like this:

1. CU
2. CSU
3. DU (does the co. school of mines have econ?, if so I would maybe put that above DU, but maybe not, since they are engineering focused, right? DU is in the city, so ya, Im sure its legit.)
then the rest.
That is how it seemed to me from the attitude most had in Co., as well as the rep the schools have here in Cali.

Alexandre

Colorado College is also worth a look. It is smaller, but it has an interesting system (the Block Plan) and at the undergraduate level, size of department is not all that important, although there is something to be said for taking graduate level courses, usually only availlable at universities with large research departments.

jk_91

Where does Berkeley's undergrad econ program stand compared to the top schools?

Alexandre

Berkeley's Econ department is ranked among the top 10, arguably among the top 5 in the nation. Right now, along with Columbia's, it is one of the hottest departments in the nation.

Buffs2013

Thanks evo9 and Alexandre. I'm really looking into both CU and CSU. Colorado College would be sweet, but it's on the expensive side.