rcwlhk

Actually, now to think of it, I found the hardest part in Calculus III and to a certain extent Calculus IV is really drawing these damn pictures. Unfortunately, I'm simply not smart enough to figure out the boundaries of integration all in my head, especially for those non-rectangular and weird-shaped 3D boundaries. The integration is usually the easiest part --- I mean come on, how much do we really know about calculus? It's all the same stuff from Calc I and II really --- integration by parts, substitution, various antiderivatives and derivatives for exponentials, roots, trigs, etc.....

Please do take this seriously (i.e. I'm not joking) --- learn how to draw pretty looking diagrams, graphs and 3D objects! They'll help you a lot in double integration and triple integration!

Thanks for the thoughtful post! Here's my two cents. I agree with you for the most part that a significant number of PhD program applicants are form China and India and I do realize that there is a significant difference in GDP per capita between those countries and the US (obviously, I'm ignoring the extremes ---- I can assure you the extremely wealthy people in China can be equally rich or even richer than their US counterparts. But then again, rich people don't seem to like the academia much...) And with regards to your discussion about US universities versus non-US universities, I completely agree. With undergraduate programs, I reckon that good schools from UK, Canada, Europe and Asia are probably similiar in quality to their US counterparts. However, when it comes to graduate programs, I do agree that the US strictly dominates. And yes, they dominate in all arenas of funding for students, research quality and output, structured program, etc. I think my primary disagreement with the overall discussion of this thread is how US-centric it can be, ranging on topics on motivations for international applicants in applying to programs to a very polarized discussion on opportunity costs. Yes, sterotyping makes life easier and perhaps makes the US citizens out there feel more proud, but in reality, it's hard to say something like: "You're from India / China, and you're applying to US PhD programs. Thus, you must be looking for a funded way to getting the US green card." :2cents:

Just a note here about international students. Firstly, I'll be international from the eyes of US school adcoms (i.e. I'm Canadian). So, having said that, it seems to me that a lot of posters here have this very awkward perception about what international students actually do and/or what their intentions are. I find it absolutely illogical to conclude that international students is now the pseudo-synonym for poor English skills, poor communication skills, and this and that. Furthermore, with respect to opportunity costs, most comments here are extremely US-centric. It's almost as if, if you're not a US citizen, then you must be living and working in some 3rd world country and hence, you earn the equivalent of McD's wage and hence your opportunity cost is nil. Please bear in mind that there are other international students applying to PhD programs other than China and India --- i.e. there are applicants from Canada, UK, Europe etc and I believe opportunity costs in these places are hardly trivial by any measure. And finally, for those who believe that people who live in China and India still live off of near poverty (in US terms), you do realize that a good portion of the people who are intelligient enough to get admitted to PhD programs in the US are likely to be capable of getting an excellent job in China or India that may pay wages that rivals or exceeds their US counterparts right? There is a reason why the luxury goods market in China is the fastest growing one in the world.... Just a little venting + two cents

Just looking at the McMaster one, you can smell something very fishy immediately --- why is it that (except for one case) you cannot convert to a 3.80? Let me say up front that our school uses the percentage system. Recognizing that 0.10 of a GPA is a huge difference (i.e. a 3.70 to a 3.90 is a HUGE gap), it makes me question how useful this is. And frankly, the lower parts of the scale are useless / irrevelant to me ---- I'm hoping that there wouldn't be a day where I have to look that far down the scale.

Hmm.... so let me get this straight. Can somebody provide a YES / NO / MAYBE to the following questions regarding topics and concepts in Calculus? (Disclaimer --- I have studied / will be studying these topics and I do enjoy them. But I just want some clarifications on their applications in economics). (i) Any use of polar, cylindrical, spherical coordinates? (I can surmise NO, but just want to make sure). (ii) Even for the calculation of double or triple integrals, would we be considering the region D that is non-rectangular / non-cubic? (i.e. region D is not the set D = {(x, y) : a (iii) Any use of parametrized representations of planes and surfaces? And their associated surface integrals? Vector fields? What about curl and divergence? (iv) OK, the gradient vector is useful --- but it isn't exactly a very profound idea either (i.e. the direction of the gradient is the direction of greatest ascent / increase). I still can't really wrap my head around why you would seriously need anything more than Calc I to II + a bit more if most of the concepts in Calc III - IV are not even used at all in economic applications!

I've been trying to follow this thread but I still don't quite understand it. From what has been discussed, it seems really no different than what I'm used to. Namely, -Instructors / professors give lectures. Student attend lectures. -Instructor gives out homework (either for marks or for no marks) and solutions. Also provides past exams and solutions if available. -Contents of the notes are usually way too easy for doing well in the exams. -Instructors usually have specified office hours where you can freely ask them questions. What exactly is the difference (i.e. Pros vs. Cons) of a North American vs. European / UK style of teaching? Sorry, I've never done any schooling in Europe before --- appreciate it if somebody out there could enlighten me!

Then this really makes me wonder about a lot of things. Namely, I understand that the whole point of "MULTIvariable" calculus is for you to learn partial derivatives (and maybe integrals?). But these concepts were long introduced to me back in Calc I and II. And similarily, I know Lagrange multiplier is important and even that, I learned back in Calc II (in single variable, but it isn't that hard to extend to the multivariable case). The Calc III sequence here is all about computing, among other things of course, double and triple integrals. Calc IV is basically just vector calculus, from paramaterization of planes and surfaces to Divergence Theorem. Here's my two cents on this whole calculus gig (disclaimer: I'm not in econ grad school yet). Let's face it --- of all the math courses that we do in undergrad and beyond, you need to be able to "think" mathematically. That is, at the very least, you shouldn't be afraid of math symbols and equations. Calculus does provide this foundation very well. So, if an applicant / student can't even do Calculus (again, "cook book" style Calculus), it makes you wonder how well can he fair in other more advanced courses. I don't necessarily agree that doing well in Calc I - IV (which is typically "cook book" style vs. Real Analysis) means you will be good in doing pure maths. For instance, in the Calc I - IV, when we talk about sequences and series, you have a bunch of tests and definitions for convergence and divergence --- without ever defining what is supremum / infimum and how it is related to convergence / divergence.

Hey guys, I understand a key requirement for Econ PhD programs is Calculus and specifically multivariable calculus. Question: -How much calculus do you need (I'm talking about "cook book" calculus here and not real analysis)? -Are there any applications to: (i) Double and triple integrals (ii) Green's Theorem and Stokes' Theorem (iii) Surface Integrals (iv) Divergence Theorem (v) Various other Calc III - IV concepts? Almost all of my Calculus classes so far only talks about applications of these concepts in physics (i.e. surface integrals for flux, double and triple integrals for volume, etc.) Thanks!

From that aspect than yes --- you only need to calculate the Wronskian, which is obviously quite straight forward. But I find the concepts from linear algebra are critical for DE's --- i.e. the concept of a basis vs. fundamental set of solutions, higher dimension system of ODE's, etc.

Not to be nitpicking the fine lines between the words but how do you do differential equations (ODE and/or PDE) without knowing linear algebra?

I used Lay's book. The chapters are OK by itself and the exercises are quite good too --- however, the exercises are, in my opinion, quite hard compared to what they teach you in the chapters. That is, often times, without the help of an instructor or a solution key, it's quite hard to navigate through all of the exercises. But maybe I'm just not too smart.... :yuck:

Thanks for the great info again! Much appreciated!

@mpleportals Thanks for posting the stats! Specifically, I'm most interested in the stats for LSE! Is it possible to give us more details as to how many people were enrolled in the classes and course itself? (i.e. how many people enrolled in Time Series and how many people were enrolled in the MSc EME program?) Thanks!

bump --- also very interested in knowing how other Candian applicants (i.e. the ones using a percentage system, instead of a GPA system) fair with regards to PhD applications. Specifically, since there is no reasonable way to convert a percentage grade to a 4.0 GPA scale, it is hard to compare profiles for us. @Nanashi : I think one thing that is PERHAPS positive for UBC's grading is that they do show class averages for each of the courses taken. It is to my understanding that very few schools do this. So, even if you get a 7x percent in a course, if the class average is much lower than that, I think it is still positive for you. Then again, I'm still speculating...