The Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Economics provides a strong foundation of economics, statistics, and calculus, and requires supporting coursework outside the major selected based on the student’s interest and future goals, and approved by the Department. Students may take economics courses within a variety of areas, or focus on a specific area of interest, including Behavioral, Financial, Political, International, Public, and many more.
Students gain critical thinking and analytical skills, along with quantitative skills, such as calculus and statistics. These skills are used to derive economic principles useful in forming policies or models designed to solve economic problems.
The below are the learning outcomes for students completing a B.A. in Economics.
- Analytical Skills/Problem-Solving: ECON students will effectively visualize, conceptualize, articulate, and solve complex problems or address problems that do not have a clear answer, with available information, through experimentation and observation, using microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, as well as calculus and statistical tools.
- Critical Thinking: ECON students will apply economic analysis to everyday problems helping them to understand events, evaluate specific policy proposals, compare arguments with different conclusions to a specific issue or problem, and assess the role played by assumptions in arguments that reach different conclusions to a specific economic or policy problem.
- Quantitative Reasoning: ECON students will understand how to apply empirical evidence to economic arguments. Specifically, they may obtain and/or collect relevant data, develop empirical evidence using appropriate statistical techniques, and interpret the results of such analyses.
- Specialized Knowledge and Practical Application: ECON students will develop deeper analytical, critical, and quantitative skills in specialized areas by applying economic concepts to real world situations.
- Interdisciplinary Knowledge, Diverse Issues, and Global Consciousness: ECON students will broaden their global and disciplinary knowledge, enhancing their understanding of the world around them both within economics and beyond.