How Your Economics Major Prepares You for the Professional World and Graduate School

How Your Economics Degree Has Prepared You for the World of Work and Graduate School

Technical Skills

  • Facility with data analysis programs such as Excel, Stata, and SAS
  • Creating charts and graphs to summarize data
  • Performing simple statistical analyses
  • Assessing the credibility of empirical evidence
  • Developing presentations with appropriate visual aids such as PPT
  • Using simple mathematics to help solve problems
  • Developing simple models that capture key features of problems to be solved

Analytical Skills

  • Developing rigorous arguments
  • Recognizing defective arguments
  • Problem-solving
  • Developing a course of action to maximize the achievement of a goal
  • Predicting the consequences of alternative courses of action
  • Analyzing the consequences of exogenous events such as changes in climate, government policy and technology on the market prices of different inputs and outputs, the well-being of individuals, the profits of private businesses, and the activities of nonprofit organizations
  • Assembling information relevant for solving problems
  • Building generic logic and analytics skills to examine the big picture 

Communication Skills

  • Clear and concise writing
  • Verbal communication
  • Public speaking

Other Skills

  • Time management
  • Persistence