Economics Learning Outcomes

Students who successfully complete an Economics major are able to:

• Explain the basic elements of economic models.
• Identify important economic actors, organizations, and institutions and describe their role and impact.
• Understand and interpret statistical measures and techniques.
• Use the spoken and written word, graphs, and mathematics to present economic phenomena and arguments.
• Evaluate multiple economic arguments and multiple sources of evidence.
• Propose and model economic hypotheses.
• Collect relevant data for use in qualitative and quantitative research methods.
• Evaluate economic arguments and policy proposals using empirical methods.

The Economics Major

Economics majors are required to have a GPA of at least 2.0 in departmental courses at graduation. Only Economics courses taken at Allegheny on a letter grade basis are included in the GPA calculation. For repeated courses, only the most recent grade is included. All courses required for the major must be taken on a letter grade basis except one of the introductory courses (ECON 100  or ECON 101 ). Students may present a total of 12 semester hours of transfer credit toward the major; exceptions must be approved by the department chair.

International Economics and Business

Those students wishing to pursue a career in International Economics or business should combine the study of a particular country and language with a background in Economics. If students are majoring in Economics and minoring in a language, they should take ECON 251  and ECON 256  as their elective 200-level course and ECON 451  or ECON 452  as their elective 400-level course. Students majoring in a language and minoring in Economics should take ECON 251  and ECON 256  and/or ECON 265 , in addition to ECON 240 . In addition, students are encouraged to study abroad and to complete an internship (ECON 530 ) either abroad or with a company engaged in international trade. Students may also select a double major in these two disciplines. For an example of language courses that complement a Business Economics track major or Economics minor, see the course of study described in the “Arabic ,” “Chinese ,” “French ,” “German ,” and ‘Spanish ” sections of this Bulletin.