- Humans of Economics -

Students ultimately want to graduate and move on to the next step, be that a job or a graduate program. The question that students need to ask themselves is what value added do they bring to an organization? People focus on their grades, they ask ‘what would this job do for me, how would this be good for me?’ Recruiters, too, often emphasize the opportunities that their organization offers. But for you to get your foot into the door, you need to figure out: what do you bring to the organization? And then ask yourself: where in your application package , on your CV and on your cover letter, does that come out? A high GPA is good, of course, but does that define you? What else do have to show for? The sooner you find out what value you bring, the easier it will be for you to find out what you want to do and where you can go in the future.

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There are two main activities that almost every economist engages in in the workplace: data analysis and writing. You have to write reports, memos, emails, and the like. These have to be clear and concise. And it’ll be difficult to progress as an economist, in particular in the financial sector, without very thorough data analytics skills. To do data analytics well, it won’t harm to to learn some coding so you can write some basic algorithms. While you’re at this university, you need to challenge yourself to develop and improve your writing and data analytics skills: pick courses and projects that help you hone those skills, even (or especially!) if you find that hard.”

Photo by Caelan Ho