Maths to Economics crossover?

My other half hopes to do an Economics Masters, but his undergraduate degree is in Maths.

Can any economics graduates or current students give their opinions at to whether he would struggle? They do a crossover at LSE but there's no way he'd be able to afford the 40 grand fees over the 2 years.

Reply 1

ZakV

Do a graduate diploma at somewhere like Birkbeck and then apply for an MSc (wherever you like)?

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/2014/postgraduate/programmes/GDGECNMC_C

Reply 2

redferry

Original post by ZakV

Do a graduate diploma at somewhere like Birkbeck and then apply for an MSc (wherever you like)?

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/2014/postgraduate/programmes/GDGECNMC_C

Thanks for the link! I hadn't heard of this, the fees aren't too steep either so maybe he could even go on to do the 1 year course at LSE... If they'd have him that is. I shall look into it.

Reply 3

.ACS.

A while back there was someone who did a BSc Physics at Imperial and got offers for MSc Economics at UCL, Oxford and a few other places.

A good MSc Economics programme is mathematical and based on mathematical models, tools, techniques, etc. and hence you ideally need a maths background! LSE simply want some people to do the two-year course as a cash cow. In reality you don't need to.

Your other half won't struggle by any means when actually admitted.

Also, the vast majority of diploma courses are rubbish since the textbooks used mostly at undergraduate level (which the diploma covers) aren't nearly mathematical enough. The concepts in economics are insanely simple as long as you have common sense. The difficult aspect comes in mathematically modelling them.

Also if your other half has experience in Matlab, then even better.

Reply 4

MagicNMedicine

He should discuss it with potential course tutors. It is better to do a graduate diploma first to get him up to BSc level in economics. If he has an undergraduate degree in maths then (assuming this was quite recent and his maths is fresh) he should be well placed to handle the mathematical aspects of an MSc however he might not understand what is going on.

At MSc there isn't time to cover principles of economics, they will jump straight in to models of exchange rates and factor mobility and if you don't know whats going on even if you can do the equations you can't really solve questions that require some intuition of whats happening before you set up your model.

He needs to think about what he wants an MSc in economics for. Is it that he wants to be an economist or does he think its going to get him jobs in finance/banking etc. If so then there are other courses he could do: in financial mathematics etc. Or if he wants to do data analysis or modelling then you can do courses in statistics or health modelling etc. I think if he really wants to do it in economics then he'd be better doing a diploma first, it doesn't need to be at LSE.

Maths to Economics crossover?

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