Hello, I am an undergraduate junior majoring in economics and minoring in mathematics. I want to be an undergraduate research assistant during the summer or part-time during the upcoming semesters. I want to focus on the fields of extreme poverty, global health, and foreign affairs.
Fall 2022 is my first semester as a junior in economics at a 4-year college. I just graduated from my community college in August, so my completed economics courses are limited.
Here are all the economic and mathematics courses I will have completed in my academic career by the end of this semester: Intro to Macroeconomics, Intro to Microeconomics, Statistical Methods, Calculus I, Calculus II, Calculus III, Differential Equations, Numerical Analysis, Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations),
These are the courses I can take in the Spring 2023 semester:
- Intermediate Microeconomic Theory
- Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory
- Introduction to econometrics
- Economic Development
- Money & Banking
- Behavioral Economics
- Probability and Statistics
- Linear Algebra
I can only take 3 courses next semester due to my (unrelated) work and long commute. Which 3 courses should an undergraduate junior majoring in economics and minoring in mathematics took to best prepare them for an undergraduate economics research assistance position? And what 3 courses will best stand out to employers? Especially in said fields of interest in extreme poverty, global health, and foreign affairs.
Thank you!
(I see the other EA undergraduates (even those academically a year below me) have a leg up due to their Ivy League or prestigious universities having more internship and part-time opportunities available within their institutions. I've applied to nearby internships, research, and part-time opportunities at Columbia, NYU, Council on Foreign Relations, etc., and don't even get a rejection email back. I can see why though: It's a safer bet to choose applicants from said prestigious universities than a recent community college graduate. Due to this, I'm considering leaving Rutgers-Newark to at least Rutgers-New Brunswick in the Fall of 2023 and applying to prestigious universities for the Fall of 2023 semester. If you can't beat them, join them.
I would really appreciate the advice as I'm trying my best to get into EA careers and causes (mentioned in my bio), I know 80k says these are easier to attain if you go to a top school, but due to my financial and personal ordeals, I didn't apply after high school or community college. But I'm still trying to remain optimistic and plan to dedicate my career to the most good I can do!)
If you want to become a research assistant to academic economists, I would recommend taking econometrics courses with a coding component. A course using Stata is probably best for this, but R might also be fine. The essential requirement for most of those jobs is being able to clean data and run econometric tests, usually within Stata.
I agree with this, but to add on since the post mentioned 3-4 courses.
I would say if you're picking 3, definitely econometrics, stats/probability to supplement analysis skills. For the third, I would say probably development economics (both to visibly show interest in the topic and have a professor you can try to build a relationship for resources/recommendations in that network). Two potential caveats- if you think the ability to leverage the network of the behavioral econ professor is better, or if that's a substantially more research skill building class that's also a pretty good option. Other caveat would be that depending on the level of the course, the Econometrics course could plausibly require or at least benefit a lot from better linear algebra skills- that'd suggest econometrics/stats/lin alg.
If you're taking 4 to stand out to employers: same logic as I described above probably applies. Would also add that depending on grad school being a possibility for you, many PhDs require or strongly suggest linear algebra.
One final thought here: I'm treating this as if you need to stay within that list- if there is an option to go outside that list (maybe to a CS or stats department?), learning programming/statistical computing skills might be among the highest value couple options.
Strongly agreed with both of the comments above. One additional strategy to consider would be looking into whether any of the professors in your school's economics department typically hire part-time undergrad research assistants. If so, taking a class with one of those professors and impressing them is a good way to get a job, which can then serve as a stepping-stone to RA jobs at other institutions (since you'll pick up skills and get someone who can write you a recommendation letter).