Economics

Please complete the relevant form on slate.barnard.edu. Keep in mind that at least 6 of your courses for the major must be taken at Barnard/Columbia.

Click here for College policies for students selecting Pass/D/Fail grading. Courses taken as P/D/F may not count toward the major. If you have already received a "P" for a required course for the major, then the Registrar will automatically uncover the grade for that course immediately before you graduate. You may not retake any required course if you have already completed it with a grade of P.  Economics majors should consult with their major adviser before designating P/D/F grading for any economics courses. 

The sequential character of the economics major makes it imperative that students

1. start early,
2. plan carefully, and
3. make continuous progress.

Typical causes of unsatisfactory experience include:

Double majors/combined majors. A double major must be undertaken with considerable advance planning and care as otherwise it can be difficult to fulfill the additional requirements to which they give rise. For many students, it is more appropriate to choose one discipline as a major and the other as a minor.

Premed. No rule prevents you from being both premed and majoring in economics. Indeed, to combine them may be exactly the right choice for you, although whether this is so will depend on your individual career goals and intellectual interests. However, it is important to embark on a joint program with care, and in particular to plan ahead, as it can be difficult to schedule all of the required courses. It can also be difficult to manage two very difficult workloads, and you should therefore be sure that you wish to try this.

Late start. No rule prevents you from starting your economics major late, but it can become very difficult to complete the major requirements before the senior thesis, and performance tends to suffer. Careful planning is essential.

Transfer students face the same challenge as late starters, only more so. If you are transferring in with junior standing and do not have significant economics major credit, you may have to settle for a minor.

Study abroad. Keep in mind that, depending on where you go, you may not be able to take courses that count toward the major. The most success in this respect is with programs in the UK or Australia; lesser success with programs in Spain or France; least success with programs in Latin America. Careful planning is essential.

Excessive internship/job commitment. Being a full-time student is already a full-time job so you should use care in taking on additional responsibilities. Internships can be very rewarding and many of our students benefit immensely from them, but bear in mind that they can consume more of your time and energy than you may have originally thought.

Shopping. No rule prevents you from signing up for more courses than you intend to complete, planning to drop one or more at a later date. The practice does however dilute the energy you can devote to each of your courses, and so also what you get out of them.

Typical strategies for overcoming these negative consequences have their own perils:

Summer school. It can be dangerous to take core courses in summer school since you may not get the preparation you will need for upper level courses. Also, keep in mind that most institutions do not offer upper level courses in their summer programs.

Ignore prerequisites. You may pass the course but you will not learn as much or do as well. There is a pedagogical reason for the sequential character of the major; it's not just bureaucracy.

Course overload. You may be able to handle four or even five economics courses at the same time, in the minimal sense that you do not fail any of them, but you will not learn as much or do as well. There is a pedagogical reason for the sequential character of the major; it's not just bureaucracy.

Most students are best served by choosing a single major, perhaps in combination with a minor. Nevertheless, in exceptional cases students may elect one of the following options.

Double Major. A double major is simply two majors. This means that you fulfill all of the distinct requirements of both majors including, if the departments require it, two Senior Theses. This may not be easy to do, especially in economics (because of the need to take courses in a specific sequence in order to complete all of the requirements). Prospective employers and graduate schools are generally less likely to be impressed by a double major than by the quality of a student's work in the specific courses she has taken.

Double Major with Single Senior Thesis. This option may be more workable than the Double Major insofar as one thesis is presumably easier to write than two. However, it can be harder to write a thesis that integrates two disciplines than it is to write one within a single discipline. It also can be harder to write a thesis with two advisors, each of whom can be depended upon to apply criteria of evaluation from their own discipline. Nevertheless, this option may make sense for you, but please note our policy on registering:  Economics majors with a double major: comibined thesis, where the counterpart department offers only a 1-semester senior thesis (such as Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures), must register in the Economics Department with a co-adviser from the other department.  If the courterpart department offers a 2-semester senior thesis, students could choose to register in either department but should have advisers from both departments.  If you decide to pursue it, realistic expectations of the heavier workload involved, and advance planning concerning your thesis topic and choice of advisors is essential. A first step is to get the appropriate form from the Registrar and seek the advice and consent of the respective Department Chairs.

Psychology Major or Minor:  The Psychology major and minor requires Psych BC1101 Statistics.  If you are a Psych major or minor and also want to major in economics (econ track) you will find that Barnard does not allow you to double-count courses from both deparments. Since the economics department considers Psych BC1101 to be equivalent to our Econ BC2411 Statistics for Economics, however, we consider you to have satified this major requirement for our department.  But in order to maintain the same total number of courses for the economics track major, you simply must take an additional lower or upper-level economics elective.

Special Major. This option involves creating your own major from among the courses offered through the university as a whole. However, usually special majors synthesize two or more existing majors, and so involve taking the core of more than one major, which are often more courses than students expect. There can also be significant extra paperwork arising from the fact that special majors are ultimately overseen by the Committee on Programs and Academic Standing, and not by any individual department. If you think this option may nevertheless make sense for you, begin by writing a rationale for your proposed major and a list of proposed courses. Acquire the appropriate form from the Registrar and seek the advice of the appropriate Department Chairs.

All Economics majors (all tracks) are now classified as STEM.  

ECON BC 1003 Introduction to Economic Reasoning is a one-semester introduction to both microeconomics and macroeconomics and is required in all economics major tracks and the minor.  As such, the rules for AP and IB credit for the ECON BC1003 Introduction to Economic Reasoning major requirement is as follows:

• A student who has received the grade of 4 or 5 on either the AP Microeconomics exam or the AP Macroeconomics exams will receive 3 credits, but there is no exemption; these students should register for ECON BC 1003, Introduction to Economic Reasoning.
• A student who has received the grade of 4 or 5 on both the AP Microeconomics and the AP Macroeconomics exams, will receive 3 credits and is exempt from ECON BC 1003 Introduction to Economic Reasoning. For the economics major or minor, ECON BC 1003 must be replaced by an additional open-level economics elective so that the total number of courses remains the same.
• A student who has received the grade of 6 or above on the IB Economics HL exam will receive 3 credits and is exempt from ECON BC 1003 Introduction to Economic Reasoning. For the economics major or minor, ECON BC 1003 must be replaced by an additional open-level economics elective so that the total number of courses remains the same.
• A transfer student who has received the grade of 4 or 5 on the AP Microeconomics exam and also transferred credit for an Introduction to Macroeconomics course taken at another institution (or who has received the grade of 4 or 5 on the AP Macroeconomics exam and also transferred credit for an Introduction to Microeconomics course taken at another institution) is exempt from ECON BC 1003 Introduction to Economic Reasoning. There is no additional credit for this AP + course combination since transfer credit will have been awarded for the course. For the economics major or minor, a transfer student exempted from ECON BC 1003 using this AP + course combination does not need to replace the course with an additional elective.

ECON BC 2411 Statistics for Economics is required in the Economics and Political Economy tracks of the major.  A student who has received the grade of 5 on the AP Statistics exam will receive 3 credits and is exempt from ECON BC 2411.  For the Economics track of the major, Political Economy track of the major, or the economics minor, ECON BC 2411 must be replaced by an additional open-level economics elective so that the total number of courses remains the same.

Math Methods for Economics covers less calculus than Calculus III, and instead covers additional quantitative skills and applications to economic problems. You may not take Math Methods if you have already taken Intermediate Microeconomics. You may take Barnard's Intermediate Macroeconomics if you have not yet taken Math Methods, but should only take Intermediate Macroeconomics at Columbia after you have completed Calculus III or successfully completed Math Methods. You may take Barnard's Intermediate Microeconomics after you have taken Math Methods; you should only consider taking Columbia's Intermediate Microeconomics instead if you performed well in Math Methods or completed Calculus III. The same applies for certain upper-level economics electives at Columbia: if they list Calculus III as a prerequisite then you should only take that course if you completed Calculus III or if you performed very well in Math Methods and feel comfortable with calculus. Consult your adviser or the Barnard Economics Chair for guidance on that decision. Columbia economics electives that should be avoided unless students have completed Calculus III include Game Theory (4415) and Advanced Microeconomics (4211).

Also, Calc IV can be used as one of the Math electives in the ECON-MATH major.

Since ECON BC 1007 Math Methods for Economics is a mix of material from Calculus I and Calculus III, the following table provides a rough guide for the math classes to start with as an economics major: 

* APMA E2000 -  Multivariable Calculus for Engineers and Applied Scientists at Columbia University is an acceptable substitute for Calculus III.

The Department offers a range of senior seminars, representing the diversity of subject matter and methodological approach in modern economics. Topics are announced during the spring Planning Period for the coming academic year, and students are encouraged to express their preferences (using our Senior Requirement Preference Form) in a timely manner since enrollment in each seminar is limited to 16 students.

Seminars are one-semester courses that meet once a week for two hours. The emphasis is on student presentation and discussion of classic and current articles in economics. The required work will be a major research paper, typically 12-20 pages, written with revisions over the semester. Your grade will be based on the quality of the research paper and your participation in seminar discussions.

Senior thesis is a year-long course in which the student develops a novel research question from a topic of her own interest and investigates it through several possible means, including:

• reviewing prior, related research
• collecting new data sets or creating new data sets by combining existing ones
• analyzing data
• examining and analyzing primary and secondary sources, and
• summarizing, developing, and applying relevant economic theory.

The senior thesis class is scheduled to meet once a week.  The class meets as a group roughly every other week; on alternate weeks, students meet one-on-one with the thesis instructor.  The year culminates in the student's senior thesis paper, which does not have a set length requirement and can range from 25-100 pages.  Your grade will be based on the quality of the research paper and advancing through various milestones and deadlines throughout the year.