Warwick or Nottingham...

economics and econometrics.

Any reasons?

I've heard some stuff about the 'milk round' where firms come round to different universities to recruit them, and I was wondering if Nottingham Economics (& Econometrics) graduates are targeted a lot by employers?

I'm mainly confused on what offer to accept, due to the future job prospects involved if I choose Nottingham over Warwick...

nottingham, i gave up offers from sussex, exeter and cardiff because i prefered kent by miles and knew i would do better somewhere which i loved at the end of the day, the employer wil take the 1st degree graduate form notts over the 2.1 from warwick

Not really tbh.

hey

I see you're studying Economics at Warwick...How is the course at Warwick? I've heard its very mathematical and tough for quite a few of the modules studied...

Also, how're you finding the social life there? I'm assuming there aren't many clubs that you can go to compared to a city university like Nottingham...

Cheers

- Have had some very poor lecturers and tutors, get impression some are only interested in research and not really teaching

x

Well I'll try and keep this concise.

I've generally found the first year very positive. I was quite apprehensive about picking Warwick, but now I'm really glad I did. I've made some amazing friends, really like the campus and accommodation, sports are good, there are loads of societies.


Social life is what you make of it - you get bored of the union after like 2 weeks, but there are decent places in Leamington (Smack, Evolve) and Coventry (Kasbah) plus there are regular trips available to the likes of Gatecrasher and Oceana in Birmingham through theuniexpress. The campus pub is pretty good, and loads of fun comes from just doing random stuff in halls. I was kind of worried about this aspect initially, but I've found it fine (coming from someone who really likes going out).

So I'd really recommend the university itself.

Now onto the course. A bit more mixed I would say.

What I like:
- Some really good lecturers and tutors.
- Some interesting modules - I really like macroeconomics and economic history.
- Good variety of modules - At LSE you get 4 - here you do 7/8. So you get some micro, macro, history, maths, stats and computing plus 1/2 options. So they're lots of chance to see what you like and hence chose to specialise in from year 2.
- Good reputation, especially amongst employers. I'm glad to have got an offer for a spring week at an investment bank given they're notoriously competitive. I'm pretty sure my university and course played a significant part in this.
- Good facilities and learning environment. Library is very good for economics.
- Think pretty much all the essays for first year are non assessed, which take the pressure off, which is nice. Essays are also reasonable lengths (750 or 1500 words generally)
- Lots of optional choice variety, both this year and in later years.

What I don't like
- Have had some very poor lecturers and tutors, get impression some are only interested in research and not really teaching
- Maths and stats modules are pretty hard (Coming from someone who did further maths AS - people who did full further A-level will find it easier, people who didn't do further at all will find it harder). I personally hate stats at the moment.
- You have to do a group project for computing and data analysis. It's pretty interesting content and all, but its just the effort of working in a group at an annoying time of term
- Quite a lot of exams and essays (but not that many essays - no way near Oxbridge). You have exams come in week 6 term 1, week 10 term 1, week 1 term 2, week 2 term 2, week 6 term 2, week 10 term 2. Kind of annoying, but arguably good as you don't have all pressure on 1 exam at end of term.
- Economics student body itself seems quite antisocial! There are loads of international students, and all my 'economics' friends actually do PPE, Econ&Politics and Econ&History. Don't know if this is coincidence or not! Economics society is dead.
- Work load is pretty tough (Last week I had to pull 2 straight all-nighters to do an essay! This isn't commonplace though , and can probably avoid if you aren't as disorganised as me. But still pretty intense work at times - but you can still have a great social life - sleeping for me mainly gets neglected )

So would I recommend it? Personally I would. But remember this is one of the best universities for economics in the UK, so you have to expect it to be pretty hard and intense at times.

Hope that helps.
-Greg.

- Maths and stats modules are pretty hard (Coming from someone who did further maths AS - people who did full further A-level will find it easier, people who didn't do further at all will find it harder). I personally hate stats at the moment.

- Quite a lot of exams and essays (but not that many essays - no way near Oxbridge). You have exams come in week 6 term 1, week 10 term 1, week 1 term 2, week 2 term 2, week 6 term 2, week 10 term 2. Kind of annoying, but arguably good as you don't have all pressure on 1 exam at end of term.
- Work load is pretty tough (Last week I had to pull 2 straight all-nighters to do an essay! This isn't commonplace though , and can probably avoid if you aren't as disorganised as me. But still pretty intense work at times - but you can still have a great social life - sleeping for me mainly gets neglected )

Wow. Pretty sure I know who you are.

Do you use matrix in your econometric modules? I do find a lot of time telling myself I should have done FM especially for the metrics modules, but I'm not sure how far into linear algebra FM goes, would have made my life a lot easier, however I'm not struggling, though that's more likely due to making sure I'm update to date and understand exactly what's going on.

I have no essays this year which is great, I'm someone who prefers problem sheets so I'd go Eco+Metrics if the OP wasn't an essay fan. Though it's not easy, I'm generally stuck till the early hours of the morning each week doing them. So i'd expect both courses to be equally challenging but different in their approaches.

I'm scared

How'd you find the micro test yesterday?

At first... I thought this was a trick question because I would have said no it was today, then I realised that it was past midnight and yesterday would have been a Sunday anyway.

It was okay, I wasted too much time on Anandi's annoying questions though, so didn't get to fully finish it. Should have just skipped them and done all of Graham's first because they were all pretty simple, so yeah only did half of his at the end. Nevermind. Yourself?

Was that the one with 400,000 fixed cost? I got negative profits for that, no idea if it was right, and that it was a natural monopoly as LAC curve is always declining or something, I don't know. Wasted too much time on it anyway, could have had more time for bertrand!