Kristin A. Van Gaasbeck

Dept. of Economics | College of SSIS | Sacramento State
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Resources

Advising

General Education (GE) Advising - Academic Advising Center
Major Advising - Your Major Department
Economics Majors
Majoring in Economics vs. Business


General Education (GE) Advising


The Academic Advising Center, located in Lassen Hall (Room 1012) accepts drop-ins during regular business hours. Advisors include professional staff, faculty advisors, and peer advisors. The advisors in the Academic Advising Center can help undergraduates with a variety of topics.

Each student is encouraged to drop in to see an advisor once each semester to insure that he/she is completing University graduation requirements (these apply to all undergraduates). The following resources will prove useful to you:

  • Catalog
  • Class Schedule
    You can search courses by subject, GE requirement, or faculty member.
  • GE Worksheet
    Includes GE Area, Foreign Language, English Composition, Writing Intensive, and other graduation requirements. If you have trouble filling it out on your own, then simply drop-in to Academic Advising Center. Advisors can help you verify the requirements you've satisfied and help you map out which courses you have remaining to fulfill University graduation requirements.
  • Registration and Advising Handbook
    Available in the Hornet Bookstore, published each academic year. Includes a complete list of all GE courses, registration dates, and other important requirements to be aware of.
  • Sac State Scheduler
    Requires Saclink authentication. Allows you to create hypothetical schedules based on your courses and your personal/work schedules.

The Academic Advising Center has compiled answers to frequently answered questions by topic:

 

Major Advising

Students seeking major advising should go to their respective major departments. The Academic Advising Center is unable to give detailed advice regarding the major, as these are subject to the major Department for approval. All departments have their major requirements outlined in the catalog.

If you are seeking out major advising for Economics, please visit Economics Department Advising. Unlike other colleges, you will meet with an individual faculty member to plan out your major coursework and discuss options for graduate school and career options.

If you are an Economics major looking for more general information on careers, graduate school, and writing in economics, please see my Resources page.

 

Economics Majors

If you are considering majoring in Economics, please review the Student Handbook for Economics Majors. It includes information on major requirements, the Economics faculty, career outlook and salaries for economics majors, and options for graduate school (economics, business, and law).

If you are an economics major, you may find the following useful:



Majoring in Economics vs. Business

This section outlines compares the Economics and Business major at California State University, Sacramento. This reflects my opinion alone. One of the most critical things you can do in choosing a major is talk with your peers, advisors, and faculty members. Your peers have the benefit of seeing classes and majors through the eyes of a student. Advisors can provide you with information on completed the major, university requirements, and career options after graduation. Faculty members will ultimately serve as references (for jobs or graduate school) and are in an excellent position to help you make choices regarding your coursework.

  Economics Business Administration
1. Units/Degree
All majors require that students complete a total of 120 units of major and General Education coursework.
42 units
B.A. degree
66-75
B.S. degree
2. Core coursework
9 units lower division
15 units upper division
18 units lower division
30 units upper division
3. Elective coursework (upper division)
18 units 18-27 units
4. Concentrations None required.
Optional concentration in Quantitative Analysis
Required.
List of concentrations.

4. General Education overlap
*Indicates course is required for the major.
GE area given in parentheses.
Courses numbered 100 or higher satisfy the 9 units of upper division GE required of all students.
3-5 Courses

ECON 1A* (D1A)
ECON 1B* (D1A)
STAT 1* (B4/B5)


Optional GE Electives:
MATH 26A/30 (B4/B5)
ECON 112 (C1), OR
ECON 181(D2/Race & Ethnicity)
4-5 Courses

ECON 1A* (D1A)
ECON 1B* (D1A)
MATH 24* (B4/B5)
STAT 1* (B4/B5)

Optional Electives:
MGMT 117 (D2/Writing Intensive)
5. Declaring the Major Students generally must have completed either ECON 1A or ECON 1B (preferably both) with a C or better. Students must complete the pre-major in business before enrolling in upper division coursework. The pre-major is comprised of 18-21 units.
6. When can students begin work on upper division coursework? Majority of courses require only ECON 1A or ECON 1B. Some have no prerequisites. Students must be declared as a business major before enrolling in upper division courses.
7. Major and Career Advising
All students may use the Career Center for career advising.
Full-time faculty (both major advising and career planning)

Career options

Career Center Contact: Debra Marcus
Major requirements/course planning only:
Staff (non-faculty)

Career advising only:
Full-time faculty

Career options
8. How many units can I take outside of my major and GE?
The range is given because the answer to this question depends on how much you overlap your GE and major requirements.
36-42 units 0-15 units
9. Average Starting Salary
(National averages, Fall 2006, from the National Association of Colleges and Employers)
$44,588 $41,155 (general business)
$44,928 (accounting)
$45,391 (MIS)
$37,191 (marketing)

 

Comparison

 

Coursework
Business administration is different from economics, but they share some common features.  Both study the behavior of people and firms within the context of market, legal, and other institutions.  In evaluating economic institutions, economists tend to emphasize the perspective of the larger society using models, and business scholars tend to emphasize the viewpoint of firms.

Coursework in business administration tends to be more vocational in nature, so it is particularly well-suited for those students who have a particular career objective in mind. Economics is much broader in scope and provides students with a general set of analytical tools that are appealing to graduate programs in business, education, public policy, law, and economics.

At California State University, Sacramento, the economics major is more flexible than the business major because

  • It has a lower number of total units needed to satisfy major requirements (#1 above)
  • It does not require that students choose a specific concentration for their studies, giving students the option to concentrate on those courses they are most interested in (#8 above)
    • Students have the freedom to design a program that is more quantitative/mathematical, historical, or policy-oriented in focus by choosing elective courses that complement each other.
    • A student may elect to double-major or minor in another subject of interest, depending on his/her longer-term career objectives.
  • Students may take upper division coursework before declaring the major and before completing lower division coursework. (#5-6 above)

In looking at the business concentration requirements, you will notice that those concentrations that are broader in scope (such as Finance or International Business) have several courses in economics. The benefit of broader majors, such as economics or business with a concentration in finance, is that it provides the student with more career options. However, those students that major in a narrower concentration, such as accountancy, will benefit from acquiring a specialized skill set.

 

Business School
Students seeking to apply to MBA. programs are expected to have intermediate economic theory (ECON 100A and ECON 100B), at least one year of accounting (ACCY 1 and ACCY 2), and the best MBA programs require upper division coursework in mathematics and statistics. The majority of students accepted to the nation's top MBA programs major in economics. In fact, the Dean of the College of Business Administration at California State University, Sacramento is an economist.

Economics majors outperform business majors on the GMAT. The GMAT is standardized test required in MBA school applications. From the table below, economics majors perform far better than business majors. Business majors actually do worse than the average (of all majors) on the GMAT. Among the business concentrations, finance performs the best. This is the concentration in business that has the most overlap with economics. General management majors perform the worst among the business concentrations.

 

Other Graduate Programs
Economics majors perform very well on standardized exams required for admission to graduate programs in law, medicine, and general master's and Ph.D. programs. A list of GRE scores by subject are provided by Christian Roessler at econphd.net. The analytical skills one acquires in the economics major are highly-valued by business, law, and other graduate programs. You can see from the table, that business majors perform poorly relative to other majors on all three standardized tests.

Below, is a table with the performance on standardized test by undergraduate major subject.

MAJOR

1994-95
LSAT

1995-96
GMAT

1998-2001 GRE

     
         
Verbal
  Quant.   Analytical  

 

Avg. Score

Rank

Avg. Score

Rank

Avg. Score

Rank

Avg. Score

Rank

Avg. Score

Rank

All Majors

151.6

506

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Accounting

151.8

8

495

11

439

12

591

4

577

7

Business

148.6

13

481

13

439

12

536

8

539

13

Criminology

145.8

14

512

8

461

11

511

14

542

12

Communications

150.7

10

513

7

471

10

523

13

555

11

Economics

155.3

1

537

3

502

5

705

2

647

1

Engineering

152.7

4

559

1

474

7

721

1

632

2

English

153.7

3

524

4

558

1

536

8

593

5

Finance

152.2

6

506

9

473

8

696

3

623

3

History

154

2

547

2

541

2

540

7

591

6

Journalism

152.5

5

516

5

523

3

554

6

571

8

Management

149.4

11

466

14

439

12

536

8

539

13

Political Science

151.6

9

514

6

516

4

575

5

596

4

Psychology

151.9

7

504

10

472

9

529

11

563

9

Sociology

149.3

12

483

12

481

6

526

12

558

10

 

Advising (#7 above)
Another key difference in the programs is in advising. In the Department of Economics, students meet with full-time faculty who serve as advisors. This is important because the faculty are those individuals who not only teach your courses, but who will help you design a course plan that is in line with your career objectives, no matter how narrow or broad in scope. The faculty will later serve as references in the student's job search and will write letters of recommendation for graduate school applications. Faculty advisors meet with students ranging from those who have never taken an economic course and just want to chat about the major, to economics majors who want advice on choosing courses best suited for graduate programs in business and economics. Even for those faculty who are not advisors, most professors in the Department of Economics have an open-door policy.

In the College of Business Administration advising is handled by staff at the Undergraduate Business Advising Center . The office staff is very knowledgeable about meeting major requirements, but specializes in advising for those students who have already declared the business major. Students who have not yet completed the pre-major requirements are advised to complete these requirements as soon as possible before getting advising from the UBAC about course planning. The faculty who teach courses in the College of Business Administration do serve as career advisors, but generally do not advise on business administration requirements or course planning.

 

So, why economics? (from Lafayette College's Guide for majors)

An economics degree provides solid preparation for a variety of business careers. In this regard economics is useful both for the method of thought it teaches, and for specific knowledge it imparts. The economic way of thinking is analytical, clear, concise, and rigorous. People with training in economics are good at problem solving because they learn to identify problems, to specify alternative solutions, to determine what data are relevant, and to objectively weigh costs and benefits in making decisions.

In addition to acquiring a useful way of thinking, economics majors study a variety of topics which have important implications for managerial decisions. These include demand theory and estimation, production and cost theory, analysis of market structure, antitrust policy, government regulation of business, capital budgeting, inflation, unemployment, determination of interest rates, and international economics.

Many economics majors do go into business. A survey at Marquette University , for example, showed 41% of economics majors working in business six months after graduation, and another 18% going into business after taking graduate work in various fields. These economics majors worked in a wide range of areas including purchasing and sales, financial analysis, banking, management, and systems analysis. This diversity demonstrates the general applicability of the analytical skills acquired by economics majors.

The analytical skills of an economics major are useful in the public sector as well as the private sector. Training in public finance, public choice, human resources, and urban and regional economics is particularly useful as preparation for government careers.

Needless to say, the things that make economics interesting also make it useful. Understanding the motivations behind and consequences due to the issues described above will certainly make a more informed citizen out of graduates majoring in our department. On a more general level, our courses provide a clear, concise, and carefully structured way of looking at social and business interaction.

 

©2007 Kristin Van Gaasbeck | Department of Economics | 6000 J Street | Sacramento, CA 95819-6082 | 916.278.6223