Information About Fall & Spring Term Courses for Prospective Economics Concentrators

Fall Term

The standard starting point for students considering concentrating in Economics or taking upper-level Economics courses is Social Analysis 10. Students considering the concentration are strongly encouraged to enroll as freshmen. It is still possible to concentrate in Economics if a student takes Social Analysis 10 as a sophomore, but course sequencing becomes considerably more constrained.

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Spring Term

If you took Social Analysis 10 during the Fall Term:

Most of you will continue in Social Analysis 10 for the spring term. The important curricular planning issue is to note that there is a calculus prerequisite for the intermediate theory courses that you will take as sophomores. Economics concentrators ordinarily enroll in Economics 1010a or 1011a during the Fall Term of the sophomore year. Math 1a (or the equivalent) is the prerequisite for Economics 1010a. Students planning to take Economics 1011a should be comfortable with multivariable calculus at the level of Math 20 or 21a (partial derivatives, total derivatives, implicit differentiation, and constrained optimization will appear a lot). If you have not already taken the math course that you will need for intermediate theory, you should do so this term.

Students who have achieved a score of 5 on the macro portion of the Economics AP test may divide Social Analysis 10 with credit for the first half and will have the spring term of Social Analysis 10 waived as a concentration requirement. If you have the appropriate mathematical background, you may enroll in Economics 1010b or 1011b, or another course for which Social Analysis 10 is a prerequisite. Neither Economics 1010a nor 1011a is a prerequisite for either Economics 1010b or 1011b. You may also want to attend the course-wide lectures in Social Analysis 10 to hear members of the department talk about topics in their areas of interest.

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