Economics Major
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About the Major
The economics major is built on a rigorous foundation of the micro- and macro-economic theory needed to understand consumer and firm behavior and the data analysis skills needed to make business and policy–oriented decisions. Writing and critical thinking skills are also a critical part of the curriculum.
Jobs in Economics
- Economic consultant
- Financial services professional
- Government consultant
- Lawyer
- Research economist
Past Elon Economics Internships
- Accordion Partners
- Lincoln Financial Group
- Merrill Lynch Wealth Management
- PNC Financial Services
- First Citizens Bank
Related Majors
Once considered a stepping stone to law school, economics became her passion and career
When Alexa Rasmussen entered Elon in 2017 as an Odyssey Scholar, she had one clear goal for her upcoming four years: to do everything she could to prepare herself for the LSAT so she could get into a great law school. Having interned for Sen. Elizabeth Warren in high school, she wanted to pursue political science and work at the intersection of law and legislation.
With an eye on acing the law school admission test, she googled, “What are the two best majors to prepare someone for law school or the LSAT?” When she learned that people who majored in economics and philosophy had consistently higher LSAT scores, she declared economics and philosophy as her majors.
Elon puts such an emphasis on leadership and on immersion into different experiences.
Little did she know that those economics courses — and the mentorship that was born from one — would change the trajectory of her schooling and, ultimately, career.
“It’s just kind of crazy how the whole thing worked out,” she said nearly three years into her career at an economic consulting firm.
During the spring semester of her junior year, Rasmussen took an Introduction to Econometrics course with Professor Steve DeLoach and found herself struggling with the content.
“It was my first time engaging with Stata and coding and visualizing data, and that was really intimidating for me,” said Rasmussen, who went to DeLoach’s office hours and expressed her concerns. “He went out of his way to help me, to make sure I was getting everything, checking in with me after classes to see if I had any questions, and what ultimately ended up happening was I loved the class.”
DeLoach encouraged her to apply for an internship with the economic consulting firm NERA (National Economic Research Associates), which she did, despite still believing she’d ultimately pursue a career in law. “I was kind of like, ‘OK, I think I’m going to law school, but it doesn’t hurt to just kind of confirm that another field isn’t what I want to go into,” said Rasmussen, who got the NERA internship.
But then, with the COVID-19 pandemic showing no signs of abating by May 2020, her internship was canceled just a few weeks before she was supposed to move to New York City for the summer. And Rasmussen was without an internship at a critical time in her college career.
“I was like, ‘OK, well now I’m going into my senior year, and I don’t have an internship,’ and it’s the time when you’re really pushed to have that experience outside the classroom,” she said.
Rasmussen told her mentor about her situation, and that day, DeLoach offered her a position as his Research Associate for the summer. Not only did he provide her with lessons in research and coding and critical thinking, but he gave her the experience she needed to be successful post-graduation.
“I’m pretty sure he got in touch with NERA and asked what I would have learned throughout that internship and then taught me everything I would have learned,” she said. “After that experience working with him that summer, I kind of had a feeling that law school was no longer in the cards for me, and I wanted to give economic consulting and the work I had done with him a try.”
After graduating from Elon in 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and philosophy, Rasmussen began a full-time job with NERA.
The work she did with DeLoach that summer was critical in her decision to pursue a career in economics. The two collaborated on an impact assessment for the nonprofit organization SEED Effect, evaluating the effectiveness of its savings-led microfinance program for South Sudanese refugees and Ugandans. DeLoach and Rasmussen analyzed data from 2018 to early 2020 to examine whether SEED Effect members experienced higher self-reliance and empowerment in comparison to nonparticipants. They found that the microfinance program had significant positive effects for both refugee and host community participants.
“This project revealed to me my passion for doing meaningful data work,” Rasmussen said in 2022. “Learning under Dr. DeLoach allowed me to build my critical thinking skills in ways I had never been able to in my actual classes. He encouraged me to think about my research from different perspectives and dig more into the ‘why’ behind data, rather than just the ‘what.’ I walked away from this project confident in my ability to use the skills I had acquired throughout it in infinite ways.”
The opportunity for an undergrad to participate in independent research is one way Elon stands apart from other colleges. The university also allows students to pick their own research topics and encourages them to present their papers at conferences. By the time Rasmussen had graduated, she had multiple opportunities to research topics that interested her.
For her economics senior thesis, she looked at how a woman’s earning potential is impacted when she has children.
“We were told, pick something that you want to learn about, something you want to research, and then find the underlying economic theory that supports that,” she said. “At the time, I was doing all this feminist research for philosophy. … Looking at women’s earning potential and how we value women, whether in the labor force or outside of it, was the perfect bridge for me.”
That research also made her realize that she could still pursue her interest in political science while studying economics. “That’s kind of when I started to see that you can still interact with policy and legislation [but] taking a data approach to it rather than a legal approach,” she said.
Elon provided Rasmussen with many opportunities that helped her become a leader in the workplace. There were multiple clubs and competitions — for example, she participated in the Microfinance Challenge her sophomore year — and she was given the chance to lead a Burst the Bubble class twice. She studied abroad in Copenhagen and served as an adviser on the Elon president’s Student Leadership Advisory Committee and the University Honor Board. And in addition to being an Odyssey Scholar, she was a Periclean Scholar, a Leadership Fellow and president of the Panhellenic Association.
“Elon puts such an emphasis on leadership and on immersion into different experiences,” she said. “There’s so much opportunity to get involved in leadership positions. You may not think that you’re going to run for president of a club, but all of a sudden you do because everyone wants to help you get there. The amount of people who reached out and helped me get into leadership positions makes me more confident in my everyday work experience.”
She wasn’t intimidated the first time she led a team at NERA because of the emphasis that Elon put on group work and taking on leadership opportunities. That gave her the confidence to delegate and lead projects.
But even beyond leading, Elon gave her all the tools she needed for her first full-time position out of college. Working as an analyst in the antitrust group at NERA, “my day-to-day at work really depends on my knowledge of economics. … I feel very privileged that every single day I have to remember what I’ve learned to be able to do a good job.”
Did You Know?
- The Elon Economics major is classified as a STEM designated-degree program by the Department of Homeland Security — a designation that shows the extensive level of applied statistical knowledge, data analytic skills and experience that is developed within the major. Students can choose to major in economics with a concentration in international economics.
- During senior year, economics majors apply the knowledge and skills they’ve learned in a capstone experience. Students author an original thesis under the mentorship of an economics faculty member, and each year, many of Elon’s top seniors present their research at national undergraduate economics conferences.
- There are many ways for economics majors to get involved at Elon, including the Economics Club; the Economics Honor Society; the Econ Games, a data analytics and research event where students solve real-world problems; the Fed Challenge; and the journal Issues in Political Economy, which is edited and refereed entirely by students, with oversight from university faculty.