Interesting thread with lots of solid advice.

Econ major here and although Im not very good at math at all especially for 2p2 standards I enjoy a lot of the concepts that are used in the material. My main goal really is just to land the entry level type job and then eventually(maybe) go back and get my MBA and try and get into management since Im sh*ty as the mathz

economics has nothing to do with math brah, it's a social science, so don't sweat it.

http://mises.org/rothbard/mes.asp

Excel is very important. Many employers want people who are familiar with it and Access. There are many other data software packages out there and obviously the more you know the better, but everyone knows excel (especially the people who you are analyzing data for, I can't stress this enough) and it's a place to start. If you know excel in and out, you will find a job.

The way I became more familiar was just on the job practice. Best way to emulate that is just to get some data and fool around with it. I don't personally know of any programs or courses or anything, but as posted above Mr. Excel is pretty good.

If you think you can get an MBA without college level math you are mistaken.

Didnt mean to convey that message in my post. I obv have to be able to complete some levels of college math but i understand my ceiling.

Also an MBA at this point in time is just a goal/dream for the future. My main goal atm is just to get the BA in econ and try and get a normal/real job. I was referencing the post above about the MBA thing

What's grad school admissions like for Econ schools? Is it like Law School where it's a formula or do they focus on your test scores? ECs? Does school prestige matter? I have some research to do apparently.

I effed around in college many(10) years ago but now I'm back and on the Dean's List. Unfortunately I don't expect to have much higher than a 3.2. I'm considering finance but from a non-target I'm not even sure crushing a Masters in Finance at a top school will get me in with my age and background. Is that an option?

Can't say I LOVE any particular part of Econ but I would still look into pursuing a PhD depending on the criteria for getting into a top school.

^^^

Bad advice.

There's a Ph.D. thread somewhere around here, but I would expect that the overwhelming advice is that one should do a Ph.D. (in anything!) only if you really loved it. It takes a lot of dedication to get through the program, and if you don't love it you likely won't have the dedication.

If you were interested though, I'd suggest you post in that thread and see what the advice is--I don't want to speak for everyone else.

ok it might be bad advice if you want to play around with econometrics and forecasting and pretend like you are actually doing something productive. but any economist worth his salt will at least read some austrian material, and 'man economy and state' pretty much covers all the bases.

I'm not talking about econometrics and forecasting. Read my other post. The econometrics and forecasting uses the more basic math (matrices and linear algebra, a bit of calculus for maximization) that I was talking about. It's the other stuff that gets into the more advanced math.

And I would strongly disagree with the characterization of 'any economist worth his salt' needing to read Austrian Economics. The valid contributions of AE have already been absorbed into the mainstream. The stuff I've been directed to from these forums (to mises.org) half the time is just wrong (or isn't even wrong). The other half is usually something that mainstream economists agree with. (OK, I'm probably being a little extreme here, but the truth isn't that far off).

Yeah, after looking through that thread, doing something you love for a PhD appears to be the consensus. It might set me back another year but I'm considering a switch in majors or adding a 2nd major or masters in a 2nd subject(like Comp Sci maybe, which I have credits in). Have some research to do.

Switching/adding another major isn't the end of the world--I'd actually recommend it if it's something that you're really going to like. I actually switched at the Ph.D. level... One more year of school isn't that much to give up in the long term. Or if it's a Master's, you could find a job and come back to the Master's after a while--and maybe even have an employer foot part/all of the bill for it. And a Master's is something you could probably do in a year or two and doesn't need nearly the dedication--particularly the thesis writing--that a Ph.D. does.

I'd recommend talking to people in the field that you're interested in though, to see what the general views for those particular plans would be (sometimes time off between a BS and advanced degree is almost expected, sometimes it's expected that one goes directly from the BS to a Master's or other advanced degree).

It's important, it's better than nothing. I'm just saying it's the minimum required for analyzing data. It's like if you want to teach spanish, you have to know how to speak spanish. It doesn't mean everyone who is bilingual is a spanish teacher though.

Statistics major, applied economics minor, Ivy. I never had a class where excel was required and never used it by choice. Stata and Splus, SAS especially, destroy excel in capability. If you go into interviews able to talk intelligently about using these you're going to jump over everyone who only knows excel.

I really don't get what using it in a class has to do with anything. I doubt any math (or statistics) department would use it, it's far too limited for heavy analysis and it's further limited by its storage capacity. I never used it in school either. I'm not debating that.

If I understand this correctly you are saying someone who is more experienced and more knowledgeable than his peers is a better candidate for a job? Again I don't think we are disagreeing here.

Just out of curiosity though what is applied economics? How is it different from just a BS in economics?

For what it's worth, I *totally* agree with Gospy above. I wasn't an econ major (phil ftw) but I worked in i-banking for a year and knowing excel is beyond crucial. It sucks trying to learn a bunch of finance stuff and getting slowed down with "Wait, how does the if function work?" "How do you lock cells instead of making relative references?"

I thought I was decent at Excel coming in and was so far off the mark. You should probably know 20+ short cuts that you use a lot cold before thinking you're remotely proficient (and obi understanding vlookup and a tonna other stuff).

Just my 2 cents.

We're not just doing addition and subtraction here lol. Just because you get paid for the work doesn't mean it's more difficult, applicable, intense...

I don't know, that was the name of the minor. I could PM you the classes necessary if you want.

I'm just saying anyone can teach themselves excel. It'll take a lifetime to master Stata, R, SAS, but they're also legally free on the intertubes, you can get pretty far in 2-3 weeks, and the benefits are going to massively outweigh excel in the future.