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What distinguishes economics at MBC?
- A strong emphasis on international economic issues, particularly at the principles level — one quarter of our introductory year is devoted to international economic issues.
- Lots of hands-on computer work with a particular emphasis on practical data analysis skills. Economics majors take two applied statistics courses taught by economics professors in computer labs where each student can work during the class with a computer equipped with statistical software widely used in the corporate world. In each of those courses students do independent data analysis research projects.
- More classroom discussion and active learning opportunities than at larger universities No more than 30 students are in one class — a far cry from the hundreds enrolled in a typical university introductory class in economics. In that setting we can use, for example, classroom experiments to grasp how markets work. With our small classes students get frequent writing opportunities that take them beyond the multiple choice tests that large classes must solely rely on.
- We emphasize policy applications of economic theory. From the first week of the introductory class, students are applying what they learn to understand articles from the financial press and debates in Congress and the World Trade Organization.
- We offer honors courses in economics, including seminars in which the entire class consists of honors scholars. We also offer honors versions of our regular classes, through which students can enrich their learning experience with more challenging mathematical and historical approaches to the theory.
- We offer a setting for women to excel in a male-dominated field.Across the United States, less than 35% of bachelors degrees in economics are awarded to women and female faculty comprise only 17% of the economics faculty at PhD granting institutions and 30% faculty at liberal arts colleges. At MBC, 100% of our full-time faculty are women, and our students are very comfortable with participating in a major that pays well career-wise but has traditionally been more accessible to men.
The full-time
economics faculty at MBC, from left to right: Amy Diduch, Judy Klein, Jane Pietrowski
