<p>Now I know it will vary from school to school, but in general what type of work will the classes consist of?</p>
<p>You should know how to draw graphs.</p>
<p>you should know how to label graphs</p>
<p>you should know how to plot points on graphs</p>
<p>depends on what you want to do and how high you want to go. my school offers a mathematical finance class for Econ majors. It involves partial differential equations and you learn some techniques for solving Black-Scholes.</p>
<p>Here’s my school’s (UCSB’s) Economics major program: [UC</a> Santa Barbara General Catalog - Economics](<a href=“UC Santa Barbara General Catalog - Economics”>UC Santa Barbara General Catalog - Economics)
I’m almost done with a Business Economics major here, so I’ll try to summarize the most important parts of it for you.</p>
<p>Aside from introductory micro- and macroeconomics, basic calculus, and statistics (all of which I think are generally well-approximated by the equivalent AP courses), I think that the cornerstone of the major is Intermediate Microeconomics.</p>
<p>Intermediate Microeconomics uses calculus to maximize equations that express utility (a huge concept in most upper-division Economics courses), minimize equations that express cost, all with the intent of reconciling the two to predict how a person’s idea of how useful a thing is will mean, in terms of what they consume. I hope that made sense (and was right). And yeah, there are a lot of graphs. </p>
<p>Additionally, you’ll use fairly straight-forward algebra to calculate things like how much firms produce under certain market organizations, given certain costs (I’m thinking of [oligopoly</a> models](<a href=“Oligopoly - Wikipedia”>Oligopoly - Wikipedia)) - I’ve done this in second-quarter Intermediate Microeconomics, Managerial Economics, and Principles of Industrial Organization.</p>
<p>Even Intermediate Macroeconomics requires a lot of the same skills as Intermediate Microeconomics, but with a bigger focus on things like trade-offs between work and leisure (and GDP, etc.). I can’t say enough how understanding Intermediate Economics classes at a school will help you understand so much of the rest of the work you’ll come across - check out UC Berkeley’s ECON 100A lectures on iTunes if you want to see/hear how it’s taught. I used Varian’s Intermediate Economics for my Intermediate classes.</p>
<p>My major involved some coursework in Accounting and Finance, but I don’t think most normal/plain Economics majors have to deal with that. Hopefully this helped.</p>
<p>thank you that was very thorough</p>
<p>No problem.</p>
<p>I just realized I must have gotten a bit delirious typing “intermediate whatever-economics,” so I really meant to type this in the second to last paragraph:</p>
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<p>Again thank you</p>
<p>I also used Varian’s intermediate microeconomics book(and a macro book by Mankiw for intermediate macro).</p>
<p>Varian’s book was very clear and easy to read for me. This was also the better part of a decade ago so chances are you can find an old edition for cheap. If you are very concerned about whether you can handle it or whether you think it’s interesting(not necessarily the same thing), pick up an old used copy. You don’t need a professor to spoon feed you what is in that book. </p>
<p>To explain the basic utility graphing questions better, basically imagine there are only two things you like, apples and sleep. Sleep is free, but you need to pay for apples and thus work. Each hour of work gives you enough to buy an apple. Your goal is to figure out how much to work in order to maximize your happiness, keeping in mind that the utility of each additional apple or hour of sleep diminishes as they increase(your first apple is more appreciated than your 24th of the day).</p>
<p>^Sleep is not free. Sleep takes up time and time can be assigned a monetary value.</p>
<p>Not getting sleep can also be assigned a monetary value as those who don’t get adaquate sleep pay many costs that those who do get adaquate sleep don’t pay. There’s no use in being awake if you’re too tired to be productive.</p>