For First-Years

Thanks for your interest in economics! It’s a great subject for nearly all first-year students. In introductory economics courses, you’ll use many of the math tools you learned in high school, and learn about many topics and ideas relevant both to your own decision-making, and to your understanding of the economy.

Overview

The economics department offers courses at six levels: 1000-level intro courses; 2000-2499 level electives; 2500-2999 level core courses; 3000-3499 level advanced electives; 3500-3999 level advanced seminars; 4000+ level honors projects, independent and collaborative study.

Placement

The economics department will provide an initial course placement for all matriculated students based on each student's responses to their Economic Placement Survey Questions, their Quantitative Skills (QS) survey and their submitted AP/IB information. (All students were required to take these surveys over the summer before arriving at ��߲��о��.)

Based on previous math experience and answers to some of the questions in the QS assessment, students may be placed in the following gateway courses for Economics:

ECON 1050 Introductory Microeconomics and Quantitative Reasoning
ECON 1101 Introductory Microeconomics
ECON 1102 Introductory Macroeconomics
or a 2000-2499 level elective

Introductory Microeconomics

ECON 1050 and ECON 1101 cover the same material, introductory microeconomics (the study of individual choice and individual markets—by contrast, macroeconomics studies the aggregation of markets and choices, i.e., the overall economy). Neither ECON 1050 nor 1101 requires any background in economics, and both satisfy the Principles of Micro pre-requisite for higher-level courses. The difference between 1050 and 1101 is that 1050 has a more supported Quantitative Reasoning (QR) environment, including a required weekly “lab” (60 minute-block focused on working through problems) led by student Learning Assistant.

Students who are placed in ECON 1050 have two alternatives. They can take ECON 1050 or they can take MATH 1050 and then take either ECON 1050 or ECON 1101. Note ECON 1050 is taught every spring but not in the fall; MATH 1050 is taught each semester.

Introductory Macroeconomics (AP credit required)

Placement in ECON 1102 requires a score of 4 or 5 on the AP Microeconomics exam or a 6 or 7 on the IB (HL) economics exam. Note: our department requires that ECON 1101 or equivalent is taken before ECON 1102.

2000–level Elective (AP credit required)

Placement in a 2000-level elective requires scores of at least 4 or 5 on both AP Micro and Macro exams, or an IB (HL) Economics score of 6 or 7. (However, an IB score of 6 only counts for one course credit because an IB class has half the contact time of an AP class.) The 2000-level electives are intended to be accessible to first-year students while also being challenging and of interest to more experienced students.

Please note that ECON 1101/1050, ECON 1102 and MATH 1600 or placement in MATH 1700 or higher are the pre-requisites for ECON 2555, Intermediate Microeconomics, ECON2556, Intermediate Macroeconomics and ECON 2557, Economic Statistics. These three Intermediate level “core” courses can be taken in any order. However, because these courses are more challenging, we require that students wait until at least their second semester of their first year to take them.

���߲��о���

Economics