Pandin (Offline)

only very few people studying economics go on to do a PhD and become an economist. many go onto careers in finance, banking, accountancy etc.

admission tutors are aware this is the case and it really won't affect their decisions. my mate in the year above focused his ps on investment banking as he had work experience and also talked about how it affects the economy - he now has offers from lse, ucl and bristol.

if banking is what your passionate then talk about!

if you want to go into a career in banking then yes i would mention it detail. there is no point in saying i did two weeks work experience at ... if you got nothing out of it. talk about how it interests you and why you want to become a banker. however if you dont want to become a banker then there is pretty much no point in mentioning it.

a strong emphasis on a career path will never be a disadvantage. many people use economics as a way to get into banking. conveying a strong interest in banking will defiantly be a boost to you ps.

Did I reply to you? I don't think I did. The Short Introduction would be ideal but the rest are all undergrad level texts and you're not expected to have read them. The Economist is good, as are economics blogs (Greg Mankiw, Paul Krugman, Felix Salmon, Marginal Revolution, FT Alphaville, Brad Delong, Modeled Behaviour are all good though there are varying levels of technicality - don't worry if you don't understand everything) and mainstream newspaper and TV economics coverage (especially Newsnight). For remedying the lack of technical knowledge, perhaps see if you can pick up an A Level study guide through Amazon - that would be a good point for a personal statement if you've taught yourself some of that. Bear in mind that undergrad economics is much more technical than at school level - the maths creeps into everything to some extent and it's the primary method of explaining ideas.

For other good books - I'd just go into a bookshop and look in the economics section, see what catches your eye. I've heard good things about Poor Economics by Duflo/Bannerjee and The Bottom Billion by Collier if you're interested in development, and I personally listed a couple of Krugman books. Things with a political bent are fine, but I'd avoid the Tim Harford books and the Freakonomics books for the personal statement because they're a bit overdone.

Good luck with your application!

Hey! Ja ich hatte mich beworben und wurde auch zum Interview eingeladen. Bin dann aber rejected worden.

Die Noten sind in Oxford nicht so wichtig wie in Cambridge. Ich war 1.1 predicted (die ich jetzt aber eh nicht mehr schaffe ) aber die reference, TSA, PS und natürlich das Interview sind vieeel wichtiger. Wenn du genau Fragen hast, nur zu, ich helfe gerne