Economics at Swarthmore

interesteddad
Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:47:06 +0000

Mom:

The best answer will come from having mom’s offspring e-mail the chair of the Econ department and ask…or to get the name of an Econ major and ask. These are the sorts of questions that someone considering Swarthmore would get answered during the accepted students weekend (lunch with professors, department open house, etc.)

Having said that, I think the following paragraph from the Econ department handbook probably answers the question (especially in light of the CalTech thread). I’ll break the paragraph up into three sentences:



In order to read the literature in Economics critically, a knowledge of elementary calculus is extremely
useful. The department very strongly recommends that students take MATH 015 and either MATH 023 or 025
(Basic Calculus).



This is your basic freshman two-semester college calculus, although students with AP calculus usually can place out of the first semester. The very strongly recommends means that you’d be pretty much dead without this basic math course. However, this also suggests that it is possible to major in Economics with just this level of math.



MATH 027 (Linear Algebra), MATH 034 (Several Variable Calculus), and MATH 044
(Differential Equations) are valuable for those intending to focus on the more technical aspects of Economics.



This is pretty much the first two years of a math major sequence. Without this level of math, an Econ major would have to pick and choose courses carefully, avoiding the more technical Econ courses. I’m guessing that it might be difficult to do the Honors program in Economics without these courses.



Students planning to attend graduate school in Economics should give serious thought to taking additional
mathematics courses, including MATH 063 (Introduction to Real Analysis).



Hardcore. Note that a higher percentage of all Swarthmore graduates get a PhD in Economics than at any other undergrad college or university in the country. So, there is certainly a strong element in the Econ department that requires hardcore math.

Note that all Econ majors have to take Intermediate Microeconomics and Statistics for Economists.

I think that a mathy or non-mathy student could find a suitable path through Swarthmore. In addition to producing Economics PhDs (mathy), Swarthmore is also the highest per graduate producer of Poli Sci PhDs and social science PhDs overall. There is a strong emphasis across many departments on contemporary policy issues of the sort that would appeal to a non mathy student. This includes a specific “Public Policy” major as well as offerings from the Poli Sci, History, and Sociology/Anthropology departments.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t think a student can make a decision about how “mathy” to be until they have taken at least the freshman college calculus sequence. For many students (even very strong high school math students), this is the first real exposure to “math without numbers”. Many students decide that “math without numbers” is not for them. Thinking about future courses, potential majors, and career paths becomes clearer at that point.