Economics at Swarthmore

dadx3
Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:11:52 +0000

As a Swarthmore econ grad (economics major and math minor) who went on to grad school in economics, let me add my perspective. Quite a bit more math will be required when going on to grad school in economics than is required for an undergraduate major in economics. I remember the economics department chairman telling me that I might be better off majoring in math and minoring in economics when preparing for economics graduate school. I took multi-variate calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, probability and statistics and real analysis at Swarthmore, and all (except perhaps real analysis) were quite useful in graduate school. I still have my copy of Rudin’s Real Analysis book to remind me why I was not a math major.

For an undergradute major in economics who does not intend to go on to graduate school in economics much less math is necessary. As others have posted, however, much of economic theory will be more difficult to handle without calculus and linear algebra. Statistics is almost essential for any social science, and even more so for economics. For most undergraduate econ majors I would not think differential equations or real analysis would be necessary.