Get Herald RSSEnrollment in undergraduate economics courses is higher than ever this year, according to Andrew Foster, professor of economics and chair of the department.
The total enrollment in undergraduate economic courses has been rising steadily since 2002, Foster said, adding that the increase is mostly due to increased enrollment over the past few years in ECON 0110: "Principles of Economics," ECON 1110: "Intermediate Microeconomics" and ECON 1210: "Intermediate Macroeconomics."
Total enrollment in economics courses has risen about eight percent over the past year to 4,380 students, Foster said, though the enrollment for Principles of Economics has dropped by about 50 students.
Enrollment in upper-level economics courses such as ECON 1540: "International Trade" and ECON 1620: "Introduction to Econometrics" has also increased - 61 percent and 70 percent, respectively.
Although this year's increase has coincided with a national economic downturn, Foster said enrollments are usually highest during favorable economic periods. "One of the reasons that people enroll in economics is that they want to get jobs in finance," he said.
Students are attracted to Wall Street and London, said Professor of Economics Ross Levine. "Over the last 20 years the financial sector has hired many of the best and brightest from around the world, and Brown certainly has lots of the best and the brightest."
Still, given the economic conditions, the "role of economic thinking has been very front and center," which may explain high enrollments during the current crisis, Foster said.
"Economics provides a prism through which to understand a little bit better some of those issues," Levine said, referring to the financial crisis, increased interest in global poverty and the rise of foreign powers like China and India.
"Certainly if I was a college student coming to campus now, and there was a set of courses to help me understand these massive changes going on in the world, I'd want to take them," said Professor of Economics David Weil.
"These are more turbulent and interesting and scary times than I've seen since I've started studying economics," Weil said. "I don't understand how people can look at what's happening in the world now without an understanding of economics. It must be terrible for them."
Taking undergraduate economics courses probably won't help one "better weather the storm of what's going on in the economy right now," Weil said, but it will help students understand it.
Economics is also a component of popular concentrations such as International Relations and Commerce, Organizations and Entrepreneurship, Levine said.
Last year's graduating class held 157 International Relations concentrators, an all-time high, which may explain the overall growing enrollment in Principles of Economics, said Assistant Director of Academic Programs Claudia Elliott, who advises I.R. concentrations.
Students said they take economics courses to gain valuable understanding of the economy and to fulfill requirements.
Carolyn Aker '12 took Principles of Economics last semester to fulfill an I.R. requirement, but said learning about the economy is "very advisable just because we're all going to be interacting with it," she said.
Aker said the course motivated her in taking additional intermediate courses in the future.
"I took it because a lot of the classes I want to take have an economics prerequisite," said Allison Courtin '12, who took Principles of Economics so she could take certain sociology courses later.
Erick Sam '10, an economics and philosophy concentrator, said he was not sure an undergraduate who took a handful of economics courses would have any magic insight into the economic crisis, but economics remained a practical choice of concentration for him.
It provides "the ability to read through the New York Times with a basic understanding of what's going on," he said.
