How to graduate with exactly 42 credits?

JHS
Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:36:16 +0000

As I understand it (and my understanding could well be imperfect, there were no econ majors in my family), the core econ fundamentals sequence is four quarters long. Maybe you could start it in spring of your first year, but you might have to wait until fall second year.

A lot of the sort of hiring econ majors drool over happens in the fall and winter. So you could be looking for a job for that crucial last summer before graduation when you have 0-1 quarters of the econ fundamentals sequence completed, and you could be looking for a “real” (post-graduation) job before completing the last quarter of the sequence. You will probably have taken some of your econ electives by then, but they may not be as advanced as the ones you would take after completing the fundamentals sequence and the related math/stats.

Generally, most econ majors will have completed the fundamentals sequence by fall of their third year (the year before their last year in college), and many will have done so earlier (because they came with more math and more econ APs than you have). You will be competing for a summer job with them when you have a very limited econ resume, and you will be competing for a permanent job with them when they have had a full year to do sophisticated work after the fundamentals sequence.

I should add that some version of this will be true wherever you go to college, if it has a strong econ program that attracts good students, and if you are trying to graduate in three years. My impression, however, is that few other colleges make you take so much math before starting to complete your econ requirements.