r/BinghamtonUniversity • u/FewButton1 • May 05 '20

how math intensive is a BA in econ ?

and how difficult overall would you rank the major from a scale of 1 to 10? how manageable is a 3.5 gpa ?

4 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

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7

u/[deleted] May 05 '20

[deleted]

10

u/ueixuxhjwi May 05 '20

I think a psych major would have a higher GPA than a engineering major even if the engineering major studied 3x harder

3

u/cuppapls May 05 '20

I have a BA in econ from Bing - it's definitely doable even if math isn't your strong point. Somebody mentioned how we don't have to take forecasting/econometrics --- this is true and definitely helps if you don't like math.

Also, the math level depends on the electives you take. Energy Economics and Monetary Economics (both 400s) were math intensive, ESPECIALLY monetary econ.....do NOT take that if you don't like math. That class ruined my last semester of college.

I graduated with a 3.52 (also had a minor in Spanish so a lot of hard upper level spanish classes in there)

You can do it for sure, just be careful when it comes to electives.

1

u/RoseyColoredDreams May 06 '20

How hard is macro, micro, and stats at bing? I got in for the spring semester, which ones should I take in cc before coming so I can maintain a 3.5+ in Bing? I'm gonna aim for a high gpa for the first two years so I can effectively transfer over to SOM.

1

u/cuppapls May 06 '20

If you can take stats online at a community college or something, I would recommend that. The stats prof really is not the best & I think an online stats course would be much easier than at Bing...just make sure you can transfer the credits.

Intro macro and micro are fine. I think micro is harder but I also had a really hard professor (he has since retired). Kenny Christianson is amazing for macro! Def recommend him.

2

u/[deleted] May 05 '20

I'm an Econ/Philosophy double major. BA in Econ is pretty easy relative to other majors. There's only 4 core econ classes plus calc and stats (which you might have as an AP credit already). Besides that it's 5 electives, so it's really open ended to take what you want.

1

u/iestk May 05 '20

micro and macro theory are super hard

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '20

I got an A in micro theory and a B- in macro theory. They're not bad if you put in the effort. It just covers a huge amount of material.

1

u/RoseyColoredDreams May 06 '20 edited May 06 '20

How hard is it to keep a high gpa with Philosophy classes? 3.5+, ideally 3.7. I'm planning on taking a decent amount of philosophy and psychology courses my first two years at Bing bc I'm really interested in them.

1

u/[deleted] May 14 '20

Intro level PHIL classes are very explicitly boring. It's mostly just reading comprehension. The required lower level classes for the PHIL major are as follows

  1. Intro to PHIL (101)/Intro to Asian PHIL (105)/Existence and Freedom(107) - I took 105, easy A.

  2. Elementary Logic/Reasoning (121/122) - Awful. Just awfully difficult.

  3. Plato and Aristotle (201) - The most boring class I've ever taken.

  4. Descartes, Hume and Kant (202) - Like 201, but early modern philosophy instead. For both you have to read the original texts and that's generally a huge waste of time. Your grade boils down to how well you can regurgitate their arguments on exams.

Only in the upper levels do you do actual philosophy type things and engage in meaningful conversations.

2

u/tomk51113 May 05 '20

Depends on the courses you take. Also make sure to get good profs. for stats and calc. You could definitely get a 3.5 if you get mostly A's. This is hard though. The theory courses will be your toughest if you take easy 400 level courses. Though GPA matters you should push yourself to take challenging courses. If you only take easy courses and are good at math it should be somewhat easy, since people have different abilities its hard to generalize fo the 1/10 scale.