I am an Economic major at Roosevelt University with an Associate in Business. I hated Economics and told myself; I would never take a course beyond Econ 101. When I transfer from Harold Washington College, I told the academic advisor, I wanted to study Actuarial Science. As he looked at my college credits and my entrance exams scores, instead he referred Economics studies. My original incentive for getting into the program was I only had to do 30 credit hours to graduate. In spite of my previous feeling towards Economics, I tried it anyway.
My first semester at Roosevelt I felt like a fish out of water, and I didn’t understand what the teacher was talking about. There were words I have never heard or used like: IMF (International Monetary Fund), import substitution industrialization, and (my personal favor) quantitative easing. Okay, I thought, now what does this mean in plain everyday English for the people who don’t have a clue? One of my teachers told me, “You must practice the language of Economists.” In fact when he gave tests, he wanted students to answer questions in its terminology. To comprehend books, and chart/or graphs, you must interpret, and learning the discourse community language. It will take about a year or more to have some type of vocabulary background.
The most important thing economic students must do is to attend class. This is our initial starting point to learning behaviors, practices, and procedures. I believe most economic students must have a little nerd in them because this curriculum can be boring. The reading is not always exciting or clear at first. Students are forever reading, assessing consumer behaviors and assumptions. Economics is little psychology, mixed with statistics, a dab of finance, and a hint of business. We are multifaceted; it is our mission to learn about spending habits from the individual, national, and international points of view.
Economics is not based on pure ideologies, but there are plenty of theories. Its teachings are established on the great Economist: Milton Friedman (Chicago School of Economics), Karl Marx (Scio-political theory), John Maynard Keynes (advocated the use of fiscal and monetary measures), and Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations). Their arguments and practices are expounded upon semester after semester, until you know the Economist base on the theory.
One of the common beliefs we share is economics is used in everyday life. Believe it or not we all have a little Economist inside. For example, opportunity cost is based on what do I have to give up to do an activity. You weight the cons and pros of choices presented before you. For me to earn a living, I must give up leisure time and sleep. Our attitude towards spending money is founded on economics, basically, why, and where do you spend money? The study encourages me to think about life.
The Economic staff and students make up a small percentage at Roosevelt; new students are always welcome to join the curriculum. I have been asked, “What is your major” and I reply,” It Economics.” Most people react as, if I am studying grave digging or mortuary. So, it is not hard to figure out who belongs in the community, they will let me know by their reactions. Two weeks ago, I asked a fellow student what was the home assignment he told me, “Extrapolating data.” I know, he could have simply said, “Run a regression”, or create a graph, and run a statically analysis. These terms are not common knowledge and are used by finance and economic students.
It is obvious in an educational environment the professor is the authority figure. All of my teacher have their PhD in Economics. This means besides getting the degree, they have authored books, papers, and studies. The most prestige Economists has won Nobel Prizes and has established more discourse theories. All in all, it takes a certain type of personality to study economics. My professor told us a joke in class one day. He said, “A statistician was conducting an experiment. He place is left foot in a bucket of cold water and his right foot in a bucket of hot water. His friend came along, and asked how he was doing. The statistician relied, on average okay.” I couldn’t believe the class started laughing. OMG, we are nerds.
No comments:
Post a Comment