Economic courses used to be widely available in high schools. Although, advance placement (AP) economic courses are becoming more common in high schools. AP courses are year long courses that a high school student takes in order to be placed in a higher class in the subject of the class in college given that the students score is high enough. AP test are scored from 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest score and 1 being the lowest. Typically, a state school with require a score of at least 3 to be placed higher while more reputable universities may require a score of 4 or 5. Aside from these AP courses, some students have the opportunity to take an economics class as a college credit plus class either through their high school, online through a college, or on a college campus. College credit plus is a program that allows high school students to take college level courses to earn college while their still in high school. Of course, a student doing this would still take high school classes and possibly participate in extra-curricular activities. I participated in college credit plus when I was in high school by taking classes online through a university and I earned a years worth of college credit with many of them being business courses. Over the summer after my junior years of high school I took my first economics course, micro-economics, online through a community college. At the time I had spent about four years being fascinated by economics. I would spend hours some weekends reading through the latest business and political news in the Columbus Dispatch. I read books such as "Understanding Wall Street" to learn how the financial system works. I would buy old economic textbooks from Goodwill to read. The one that I spent the most time reading was on economic development. It was an old textbook from the late 1990's and it still influences some of my thinking to this day. When I took the course I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was my favorite class up to that point. Even though I was familiar with many of the basic principles of economics and the indicators used to determine the overall health of the economy. The course still refined my thinking and gave me a broader perspective of some economic issues.
Aside from college credit plus classes and AP classes some high schools offer economics as an elective for high school credit. Some high students do not have the opportunity to take an economics course. Economics is essential for understanding how to make the most of our resources. I may have mentioned in a previous blog that economics is a social science that analysis how resources are used in a society. This would involve looking at the whole of society as business and government make important decisions on how to use their resources. This aspect of economics is called macro-economics. While analyzing the decision of individuals and individual companies is called micro-economics. Typically, a student taking economic courses takes micro-economics first then macro-economics. Of course, once a student completes these two principle classes, they have the opportunity to take more specialized courses such as labor economics. I will cover these subjects further in depth in subsequent blogs.
Economics is taught at most universities and offered as a major to undergraduate. While others offer a masters degree or even a doctorate (PhD) in economics. Typically, an economics major would take the principles courses mentioned earlier then a more advanced version of both classes. The student would also take courses in other disciplines such as the arts and humanities for general education. Also, its likely that calculus and a rigorous statistic course or two would be taken. Finally, econometrics which is an advanced course on economic statistics would be taken in lieu of a few high level economic electives. After graduation an economics major could either continue to graduate or start a career. The career options available to economic majors are quite board. These options include working for the government, working for a bank, in house economist for a company, and if the student continues to graduate school teaching at the university becomes an opportunity. There are probably many others that I did not mention. Typically, if an economist works for a company they are analyzing the market to help guide decisions. If an economist works for the government their usually either analyzing statistics for agencies that collect data such The Labor Bureau of Statistics or their helping guide policy making. If one continues to a masters degree in economics than usually advanced math courses such as differential equations would be taken. Also, depending on the program, the student may have to present a thesis paper that is about forty pages long or so to a thesis committee. The thesis paper generally involves an empirical study and the committee would then evaluate it. Then if one decides to pursue a doctorate then the student would have to write a dissertation which is typically a 100 to 200 pages long research paper that contributes to the field. Typically, a dissertation involves an empirical study that involves doing field work. Then the doctoral student would have a dissertation committee that the student would meet with every once in a while. When the dissertation is complete, which usually takes three to five years even at full time depending on the topic, the student then presents the dissertation before the dissertation committee. The job of this committee is to determine whether or no the student is worthy of a doctorate. Once the student has made a successful presentation to the committee and the committee is convinced. Then the student graduates with a doctorate and can teach the subject at the university level. Although, some adjunct professors do not have doctorates.
Outside of formal economic courses there some misconceptions about economics that I've pointed out in some of my past blogs. For example, some people think socialism can work even though its failed every time it was tried. Socialism ultimately fails because a collectivist system always gives people a far less incentive to work hard or innovate. I will this issue further in depth in later blogs. This not to say that our society needs to be individualistic to its death. Indeed, a society can balance the values of individualism with helping those in need. This is especially a problem on college campuses where some students who did not take an economics class misunderstand some the most basic principles of economics. Some of them think that socialism would work. This is not to support the thinking of the Republican or Democratic parties. I am merely pointing out some of the issues that can occur when economics is misunderstood.
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