Senior in high school right now. I've had the privilege of attending a private high school owned by a university, so for my junior and senior years, I've had the opportunity to take some college courses.
Summer 2015, I took Introductory macro, and then took introductory micro in the fall 2015. Spring 2016 I took Empirical Economics I. Summer 2016 I was busy with college apps and the sort so I didn't take any summer courses, but fall 2016 I doubled up on Econ and took Empirical Economics II and Intermediate Micro. Now in Senior Spring I'm taking Intermediate Macro and Statistics for Economists.
Over the summer, if I take another course, this will mean I have taken 8 semesters of economics during my time in high school.
Now, when I get to college, I have a lot of path opportunities with this syllabus. I've been really interested in finance since sophomore year, when I realized I'd probably make a shitty engineer because I didn't like Chemistry or Physics, and Biology junior year was also boring for me.
Now, I have a few questions: 1. Is an economics degree a good major? I was thinking of combining math and econ in university. 2. Should I take a gap year? My mom has been recommending I take one, even though i know what my major is, because she wants me to develop more as a person. She thinks I should travel around a bit more and get to learn more places. 3. Should I take any languages? Normally, in junior year we take language and science as college courses, but i voided language requirements by taking AP german. I speak near-fluent German and I'm really good at learning languages (I did well in Latin freshman and sophomore year and Spanish in middle school). If so, what languages would you recommend? 4. Should I consider taking any courses in finance or accounting to add onto my knowledge of Econ, or just keep progressing in Econ?
Join the airforce. just put in four years, do something interesting and save your money while in. Do not let your parents persuade you into pursuing college until you are 100% fucking sure what you want to study. Else you end up like me in professional school for a career you hate and constantly terrified of your future. If I were to do everything over again at the age of 18 (I fucking wish) I would follow my tips above.
>Be me >Go to college, 4 year engineering program >Graduate last year, 50k debt >Get job in petroleum industry yet with good job security >160k/yr starting, food and shelter paid for while on the job >Already paid off all debt ... But by all means don't go to college, it's a ripoff and a scam
Dominic Davis
You're like almost done with an Econ degree.
Did you get into any good schools? If you got an ivy then just cash in. The ROI of an econ degree from harvard is probably the highest you can get from an undergraduate degree.
I wouldn't waste being this far ahead in class. I came from a shit public school and took every single AP/college credit class offered and its made college much more enjoyable and relaxing.
I can take my time on the more rigorous courses and not fall behind since i'm so far ahead. That translates to a high GPA and more time to socialize + network.
You'd fall in my position only instead of walking in with gen ed's done you'd walk in with a BA in econ already (assuming the credits transfer). Get a degree in stats or math to pair with it and you'll do fine.
Austin Diaz
Use your economical knowledge to daytrade crude oil futures or forex
Ethan Flores
I haven't gotten my results back in, but my stats were: -3.5 GPA -Extracurriculars: German (I took some tests from the German gov't proving fluency and did saturday school since fourth grade), Crew/Rowing (coxswain since freshman year), Community service (got 160 hours for teaching physics to middle schoolers in freshman and sophomore year summer), and Violin (played since third grade). -Math Recommendation: taught me precalc and calc sophomore and junior year; I think that he wrote a good recommendation. I told him about my interest in Econ mid junior year and I struggled in Calc for the first half of junior year since I did like zero homework and barely studied. But I worked with him, studied, and kept up with my work and turned my B- into an A- by the end of the year. -Humanities recommendation: History teacher sophomore and junior year; definitely good. He always enjoyed that I would take a reading for class and have an interesting perspective on it. In a class debate, I wouldn't shy away from arguing the opposite of what other people thought and he always liked that i kept up with the readings and such.
I applied to Yale, UPenn, Harvard, and Columbia, but also applied to UChicago. The top schools I think I stood a shot at were Northwestern, Northeastern, and NYU.
Oliver Foster
I founded the stock market team at my school (forgot to mention that in this ) and did a decent amount of this in stock market competitions. I'd usually bet on crude oil ETFs and currency ETFs since they wouldn't allow me to use full on forward or futures contracts. I made bigbux in a competition back in junior year off of DWTI, right around the time when oil was falling. I rode the gains from like ~$60 to >$450 and made a handsome return. I'd also just play around with volatility indices and usually post a good return.
Can i get into this by myself, or do I have to be attached to a larger institution? I'm worried about using futures and forwards since they're risky (or so I've heard) and I don't really have a lot in terms of assets right now.
Jackson Morales
What the fuck do I do with my skill in economics without a degree to back it up? I know about the no college meme and I honestly believe it myself, but if I go to a firm saying that I have "self taught" myself economics, how can I prove it to them?
Separate question but still related to the topic, would it be wise for me to learn accounting on my own and take a CPA or do something similarly with finance and CFA, or are those dead skills and I'd just be wasting my money?
Lincoln Cruz
I am saying it's a fucking meme, a degree in a useful field is absolutely worth it
Colton Scott
Why is Econ and a meme and what majors aren't memes?
I'm good at math and I want to go into the financial services field. Is actuarial science a meme? My uncle, a math prof, recommended that field to me.
Jonathan Long
Are you illiterate? Econ major is a good degree.
The whole "don't go to college" is fucking dumb and you shouldn't listen to it.
Austin Wright
Oh! Sorry, I didn't mean to select your response. When I selecting 's response I think I clicked on yours by accident when I read the bottom.
Most people on this board seem split on whether Econ is a good major or not. I either get "Good degree" or something along those lines or straight up "suicide tier." Regardless, I hear that once I get a promotion, I'll be set, but there's usually a lot of work that goes into getting it.
What kinds of jobs would be available to me as an economist in the financial industry? Ideally, I'd like to be working in currencies/commodities since those have always been really interesting to me, but my strong quantitative skills make me open to the quant/actuarial science field.
Most of my advisors, as well as my parents, are STEM majors and considered (especially in the case of the latter) crazy that I wanted to head for a math/econ field.
Gabriel Nguyen
*typed that manually at 4:07AM
Cooper Davis
Bump for interest. Especially on that question about gap years- what would be the rationale for taking one? Pros/cons, basically.
My family's pretty wealthy and my parents said they'd be willing to send me to Europe for like a year and fund my expenditures, but idk what kind of effect this would have on my education.
Ian Ross
About taking a gap year. It is a bad idea. Not doing anything for a year will make going back to studying extremely difficult. If you take a year of to work, then going back to studying basic topics will seem like a waste of time.
3rd year studying computer science and working part time at a multinational corporation.
Mind if I join in on the conversation?
Parker Barnes
Go away cs weenie. The big boys are talkin here
Ryan Reed
A bit off-topic, but I've heard CS is going to be way oversaturated by the time most grads hit the market. What has been your experience like in that regard?
Daniel Bennett
There's no reason to do a gap year unless you are doing some kind of special internship or volunteer experience. Partying for a year in Europe will just make you look like a spoiled brat and it won't help you build character or maturity.
Just travel to Europe during your summers off.
Jeremiah Garcia
Getting into S&T or IB from a target is piss easy. You sound like you're ahead of the curve since you've had a game plan since middle school so good on you.
Just pray you get into a good school, your GPA isn't great but you've got a ton of extra curriculars. Are you a minority?
I also applied to North Eastern and NYU (i didn't have enough cash to apply for real Ivys and I felt like my transcript wasn't strong enough.
The number one goal is to get a good education at a cheap cost. Whatever school gives you the most aid is probably the one you want. Nobody is that successful coming out of NYU with $240k in debt. It will haunt you for the rest of your life.
I'm looking at around ~$20k debt with no scholarships (i've got to apply for more of those).
Henry Russell
What i like especially about Northeastern is the co-op program. I didn't know that there were a lot of financial companies operating in Boston, but it seems like Northeastern would be a comfy way to get into like State Street or something. My brother's studying chemical engineering there and says it's a good experience.
Benjamin Robinson
Get some basic office work experience on your cv. It doesn't matter doing what. Then you're all set really
