LSE economics students, maths required for economics course?

Hey guys

I am looking to apply to the Economics course at LSE for undergrad, and I heard it's very mathematical. I'm not a weak maths student, I already have an A* in Maths A Level and am doing Further Maths. Despite being capable, I don't really like the idea of expecting to study economics but end up doing loads of maths. I just wanted to know what level/amount of maths is required in the pure economics course at LSE. What kind of maths is required, really.

Thanks

Reply 1

nju

Economics is very maths based, if you do not enjoy maths I suggest that you look at a different course

London School of Economics

London

Reply 2

Bloxorus

Original post by gsupa

There's a hefty amount of maths anywhere you go for economics, especially the top universities, however ones such as LSE are particularly maths heavy.
If you aren't keen on doing a lot of maths id suggest applying to somewhere which does BA Economics instead of BSc such as Durham or Exeter, but if you don't want to do any maths at all id say apply for a different course.

Reply 3

gsupa

I dont mind doing maths, I just want to know what kind of maths.
I know there are lots of statistics involved, but apart from that?

Reply 4

Swayum

Your first year will have 1 stats module that covers S1 - S4 at A-level and a tiny bit more, considered a very easy course because most people have done S1 + S2 before and S3 + S4 are actually easier than S2 in my opinion...

Then you'll have a maths module which is half calculus (learning about calculus of functions of 2 or more variables e.g. f(x,y) = 2x + 3y and optimisation techniques, focused entirely on differentiation, virtually nothing on integration which is a 2nd year maths topic) and half linear algeba (matrices, pretty much exactly what you do at A-level like diagonalisation, but introducing new techniques, theorems and methods that you wouldn't have come across).

The economics module in first year has no maths in it (apart from very rarely having to apply the quadratic formula).

As such, yes, your first year may just feel like doing a lot of maths and stats but not much economics. But then 2nd and 3rd year will have a MUCH bigger economics focus than maths or stats. I also always found that the maths and stats were considerably easier than economics, so I was spending way more time doing economics than maths/stats anyway, even though I had more maths/stats exams.

Then in 2nd year and 3rd year you can choose to do very little maths or quite a lot. Most people go for very little maths for some reason, I think going for more maths is easier personally. But again, the maths will be calculus and linear algebra focused. The mathematical economics modules just apply the same calculus techniques over and over again. It's mathematical, but once you've seen 1 example, it's all the same - very repetitive and boring maths, but pages and pages of algebra quite often.

Typically, you'll be asked to do stuff like "maximise profit subject to a cost constaint", e.g.

Profit = K^2 + L^2 (K is capital, L is labour)

Cost = 20K + 50L must be less than $10,000.

What's the most profit you can make? If I allow you $1000 more (or less), how does your profit change? This would be a typical microeconomics question in 2nd year (not 1st year because 1st year economics has no maths, but you'll learn the mathematical technique to solve this question in your 1st year maths modules).