Attention Business Majors

There is a great deal of complementary between business administration courses and economics courses. In a sense, the latter provide the theoretical background for the former, or as some students have noted, the “big-picture,” while the former provide the real-world, day to day application of the latter.

The following is a list of courses suggested by alumni who were double majors in the two disciplines. Also included are specific comments about the courses from those alumni.

Recommended Courses for Students Interested In:

Finance

ECON 321 Money Banking
ECON 322 Investment Analysis
ECON 482 International Finance
Note: the prerequisite can be waived for BUAD students with backgrounds in finance.

International Business

ECON 382 International Economics
ECON 384 Economic Development
ECON 405 Contemporary Economic Issues
ECON 482 International Finance

Quantitative Methods

ECON 300 Introduction to Economic Analysis
complements your existing quant classes – teaches research methods, including data collection analysis – BUAD students have taken it
ECON 361 Introduction to Econometrics equivalent to MATH 200, but uses business & economic examples and applications – accepted in the BUAD major in lieu of MATH 200
ECON 462 Economic Forecasting

Management

ECON 311 Industrial Economics
ECON 312 Government & Business

Tax Issues

ECON 341 Public Finance

Human Resources

ECON 351 Poverty, Affluence and Equality
ECON 352 – Labor Economics

Recommended Business Courses for Economics Majors

ACCT 101 and 102 – Principles of Accounting
DSCI 353- Decision Analysis
Buad 473 – Environment of International Business Seminar

Comments from Alumni

Comment From a Graduate in Business Consulting
Simply, while the theoretical background of the working of the economy is crucial to understand, grasping the concepts of day to day business operations will also benefit the ECON student in “the real world”. Therefore I recommend the following for ECON students:ECON students should take BUAD 231 and 232, Principles of Accounting, as it is crucial for the student to be able to read and comprehend the financial statements of a company. While I don’t work in the Banking or Investment industry, topics such as sunk costs, depreciation and amortization spring up frequently in my current position. For much the same reasons, I recommend BUAD 381, Financial Management. Students should understand how critical basic financial management is to the survival of a business, and be able to calculate rates of return on investments. In addition, ECON students should take BUAD 252 & 253, Management Information Systems and Decision Analysis, to understand basic concepts such as cost benefit analysis and break even analysis. The computer intensity in these classes is also extremely beneficial. Finally, I recommend everyone take BUAD 490, Policy and Strategy, which allows the student to apply knowledge from virtually all ECON and BUAD classes to real life scenarios.

I feel that BUAD majors focus too intently on the day to day operations of a business and are often oblivious to the “big picture” which impacts them in ways they fail to understand. Many business majors I took classes with didn’t understand the importance of extremely basic concepts like business cycles (sure, let’s open that shop in the middle of the Great Depression).

For BUAD majors I recommend ECON 303 and 304, Intermediate Macro and Micro. I also recommend ECON 321 and 322, Money & Banking, and Investment Analysis. Business students study the nuts and bolts of Financial Management, but seem not to understand how basic concepts such as investment and saving affect the economy.

I would further recommend that students from both disciplines take as many International and Law classes as possible. Of course, since I work in the Contracts/Pricing Division of a company performing work both domestically and overseas, I may be somewhat biased.

Comment from a Graduate in Business Consulting
Admin. department does not have enough students to diversify beyond Management/Accounting/ Taxation. I think that is where the ECON classes come in handy to a business student. For example, someone who wants to get into banking or investments can find a lot of good classes in ECON.

Comment From a Graduate Working in the Financial Industry
On top of the BUAD courses for ECON majors would be policy. It helps put some of the theoretical questions posed by economics in real terms & requires you to think through the options. Others to consider would be Financial Management, and Accounting I & II.

As far as ECON classes for BUAD majors I would suggest Money & Banking, as a good counterpart to Financial Management, and International Economics. to help open the scope of the BUAD curriculum.

Comment From a Graduate Working in the Financial Industry
As a Bank Lender & Analyst, I utilize a high degree of skills from both the Econ and BUAD majors. On a day-to-day basis, I use accounting, finance, investment analysis, macro economics, and elements of business strategy & analysis. My experience has shown that in the real world, knowledge of both BUAD and Econ have a synergistic effect (no surprise). In the real world, both majors have areas where there is a great deal of overlap, like in the Financial Industry. Consequently, the suggestions I am presenting follow mainly from my experience in this industry. However, overall I would highly recommend classes that emphasize mathematics, methods of quantitative analysis, and decision making.

As for ECON students, I would require Accounting 101. It is not too intensive, but still
provides a solid foundation for the basic financials of a company and/or industry. In ECON, we dealt primarily with theory and rarely touched on “actual numbers” where you could apply that theory. This would be a good opportunity to be introduced to some of the cost data that you might be exposed to once out of school. Of course that depends on the line of work you go into once you graduate.

My other suggestion is that ECON students either take the same course or one that is similar to BUAD’s “Seminar: Policy & Strategy”. We were required to continually review business cases and provide our own analysis and recommendations based on the experiences that particular company/industry had gone through. Being able to apply micro and macro level forethought seriously helped me in that course and gave me a good perspective on how some of the basic tenets of ECON were at play in the “real world”. Unless an ECON student was doubling up with BUAD, they really wouldn’t have the opportunity to take a class like that in the ECON discipline (at least not that I’m aware of).

Keep in mind that I work in the consulting industry where we try to provide business solutions to a client. Therefore, my perspective of what is ideal mix of classes might not be the same as someone else seeking ECON/BUAD degree. But I’ve found that both programs were beneficial. Besides one or two classes, ECON taught me more how to think on a larger scale (individual-society, domestic-international, public-private) whereas, BUAD taught me how identify a situation, good or bad, and use a technique to adjust or take advantage of that situation.

Regardless of what program someone is majoring in, I would highly recommend taking at least two computer science and/or programming classes. That is something that I didn’t do sometimes feel like I’m a step behind others that did.