Economics course help

Put Sheffield uni as my conditional choice for pure econ a few months ago but now have the opportunity to switch to econ and maths joint honours. I'm considering accepting it as Sheffield has a weaker econ department compared to other unis, so it'll likely have less maths involved which may lead to worse opportunities especially from quantitative heavy jobs. However, it would also lead to considerable less depth in my econ knowledge.

I'm not 100% sure on what career I want in the future but public policy looks interesting to me right now so any advice in general on what course would be better or specifically for that career would be helpful.

I'm also considering a masters in econ with public policy or econometrics so if I choose the joint honours would I still be able to apply for a pure econ course

Reply 1

Kiddo276

Go for the mathematics and economics combo. Most (weaker) Economics courses like you correctly noted, cater more to qualitative Economics because people are more familiar with words than maths.

The masters idea is fine but I would say, definitely look into the modules being taught at masters to make sure that the mathematics you used or learnt is actually applied - a lot of mathematics in economics courses which are joint honours may never get used again, whereas a Mathsy heavy pure economics course will only teach you maths which is relevant.

I hope this makes sense; best wishes.