Current Students - Do You Like the Direction the College is Headed?

Skyrior
Wed, 10 Apr 2019 06:56:05 +0000

I honestly get a sense that the College is changing for the sake of changing. I’m also worried if they are changing their target student demographic to more closely align UChicago with Ivy League. But to be quite honest that isn’t even my biggest concern. It’s not a zero-sum game and there are many potentials for different demographics to both be better off.

My biggest concern is the neoclassical economics paradigm that is taught in undergrad but hardly challenged unless you go out of your way to challenge yourself. It’s ironic when List and Thaler, two great behavioral economists, are in this very university. I’ve heard rumors that Thaler didn’t feel at home at UChicago and I guess I didn’t really feel surprised. There is a shocking lack of serious behavioral economics courses available to undergraduates here. A lot of them are offered in Booth school but only open to PhDs. The ones that are open to undergrads are either joke courses oriented towards people chasing the next buzzword, or things that aren’t really economics, like public policy courses cross-listed as economics courses.

Even within the neoclassical paradigm, there aren’t good graduate preparation-oriented microeconomics courses other than Honors Game Theory. If you’re serious about microeconomics you probably have to seriously consider Price Theory, a graduate course.

Going forward I really wish to see the department offer rigorous courses around behavioral economics and microeconomic theory. The macroeconomists have 3 graduate level courses that are highly challenging and taught by esteemed professors and the microeconomists have none!!! Almost all the economics electives that are micro-related do not really prepare you for serious graduate study. But macro folks get 3!!!