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Welcoming a post-COVID Econ cohort
I met with a student just before he graduated this May who was telling me about the job he landed. “It’s my dream job!” he said. “It’s exactly what I came here hoping to do.” It’s so exciting when we hear this from our students. We are proud of their accomplishments and happy that we could help prepare them for their professional lives. As I met with incoming students this summer I was reminded that their experience will be very different from the Class of 2024 due to the many changes of our post-COVID world.
Travel opportunities are now reopened and students are taking advantage of the many options to study around the world, not just in our specially designed Econ programs (in Paris, Vienna, and Pavia, Italy) but also in other countries such as Sweden, Spain, and Japan. In the 2023-2024 academic year our program in Benin, West Africa, led by Professor Richard Akresh, was also very popular.
We’ve also noticed that econ students are on the move in terms of jobs and internships. Our students engage in internships at the White House, at large financial institutions, in local politics, and at think tanks. The study of economics presents opportunities in countless sectors and locations, and our students are now taking advantage of these opportunities.
Job skills have changed too. In this world of big data sets and sophisticated AI, the Department of Economics has revamped our undergraduate program to introduce coding to all students at the 200 (sophomore) level. The course updates will produce graduates who not only possess strong analytical and quantitative skills but also have the coding skills in demand by employers and graduate schools. Paired with our Economics Data Lab, students can cap off their undergraduate experience with a practical application of those quantitative and coding skills in a realistic client scenario. Stay tuned as we expand opportunities for students to develop their data and coding skills for these burgeoning careers.
Those are all reasons why it is especially exciting to welcome a new cohort of students who will have even more opportunities to learn new skills, expand their horizons, and prepare for careers of the future as part of Economics at Illinois’ Class of 2028!
Jamie Thomas-Ward
Director of Undergraduate Studies