Resident Mario

1. Think not of how others define you, but of how you define yourself. (trans. party, shmarty) 2. Seek knowledge for knowledge's own sake. (trans. grades, shamdes) 3. Do you. Embrace being happy with what you have, and don't go off sideways because you think you're not doing enough. There's always going to be a lot of people above you on the totem pole, so quit ranking.

Two things: 1) I'd warn against planning so far into the future, seeing as how untold numbers of prospective econ students branch off into finance and other non-research fields in undergraduate. Do you really know what you want to be studying for the next ten years not yet out of high school? 2) Anywhere will do, look at ranking and find places you're comfortable with and have good chances of attending. Ranking matters a lot in your choice of graduate school, but at the undergraduate level it very quickly hits the point of diminishing returns.

Thank you Blanket, I may yet take you up on that offer. Right now I think my next step is to get in contact with some of my upperclassmen and survey their impressions of the school's econ/math/stats departments, and to meet with my honors adviser and query her about job placement and an LSE semester abroad opportunity that she's name dropped before.

Wow, with thinking like that you must be an economist! It's too early for me to say with certainty that I want to become a super academic. It'd be nice, but I haven't really been challenged yet (ascending to sophomore year) so I don't yet know if I have what it takes, so I want to have an exit strategy. I know almost for certain that I want a dual major in economics and mathematics, but my concern is that PhD is considered "starting level" when it comes to econ, so what I can do with my BBA Econ + BA Math if I want to get a job (preferably one involving computer science) immediately after graduation? I was weighing the value of leaving versus staying before, and I'll now add this to the list of things to consider.

I'm interested in this question of school rank. I'm very comfortable where I am now, with a scholarship that will leave me completely debt-free come graduation, but I recognize that the school I'm attending is no Columbia. Is school rank important enough that I should consider ruining my financial security to improve it? My immediate impression is "hell no", followed by "well, at least not yet", but this poster's experience seems to imply otherwise. What do you guys think?

Thank you.

It hurts my head to think this far forward as an ascending undergraduate sophomore, but here I am... What are "touchstone" topics you need to cover, as an underclassman, in mathematics, statistics, and economics? What are "recommended" topics? What are "useful" topics? I'm currently looking at a dual degree in economics and mathematics. At a conceptual level I'm most interested in econometrics, and am strong in computer science.