Post by Adam Stromme on Jan 29, 2016 13:33:16 GMT
Hello all,
I sent this message to the department in the hopes of starting a dialogue about changing the way we are taught economics here at St Andrews. At Professor De Groots request, I have replicated it here.
Feel free to comment your own comments/questions!
Hello Oliver,
I am a student of economics currently taking your macro course and have decided to take a bit of time to reach out to you as pertaining to questions or constructive comments about the degree program. I love economics, and more importantly, I love the kinds of questions that economics asks. I also understand that the department is in the process of trying to develop its curriculum in order to both deepen and diversify the type of course material taught to students. Correspondingly, I would like to ask a couple of questions and raise a couple of points of constructive criticism in the hopes that it can start a dialogue where my position as a student can be of assistance to the professors teaching the course.
On the one hand, I am aware that my position as a student means I am not entirely certain of everything that is covered in every module, and that my place in the economics degree track means I may very well have yet to see through some of the questions I wish to ask which as of now remain unanswered or unaddressed. On the other, as a student of economics who has taken very seriously the need to study the field as a whole, I feel I am well placed to at least provide starting points for further dialogue.
My first question pertains to the diversity of subject matter provided within the courses. Having taking the introductory courses in macro and micro, as well as the first semester of econometrics, I have discovered that largely only three different forms of analysis, naturally in varying forms, are used: equilibrium, profit maximization, and cost minimization.
Naturally, understanding the basics of economics, I am aware these are all rightly regarded as essential learning for economics students, and to not afford sufficient time to them would prove enormously detrimental, so my first question defers to your authority: Is there any way to incorporate more elements into these analytical tools once the basics have been taught? But for one lecture in my first semester of first year, for example, I cannot recall any significant grappling with the concept of externalities, or how a policy analyst not taking the form of a business official might conceive of improving the general welfare where relevant.
TO STUDENTS, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE ADDED/INCORPORATED INTO OUR CLASSWORK?
This is not an idle appeal to drown economics in all the other social sciences purely for the sake of diversity. I am well aware of the need for such considerations to factor prominently in the education of any employable economist. But upon doing a little bit of research, I even discovered that policy prescriptions which are rightly viewed as common sense, such as Keynesian economic theory, were largely absent from the series of textbooks we used in our first year (Mankiw's Macroeconomics) until protests from students demanded a diversification from the focus purely upon the neoclassical model. Imagine if you had graduated from university and taken a position at a public policy organization like the Fed having had at most two years of proper experience with Keynesian theory! Taking contemporary developments in economic thinking seriously, far from being a burden, would enable the graduates of St Andrews to exercise their judgement within and across various methodologies more critically and continue to stand on the frontier of the profession as they always have.
My second question draws upon similar lines. Before arriving to university, my initial interaction with economics, the one which brought me to study it at this level, was through the literature of economics. It was by reading the lively discussions of writers as far flung from one another as Keynes, Marshall, Marx, Pigou, Schumpeter, Hayek, Mises, Brady, Smith, and the like which made the kinds of questions economists talk about today so lively. By contrast, the day I signed up for classes at University here, I was sincerely disappointed when I was nearly laughed out tout court for construing economics as anything but glorified mathematics.
Once again, for clarification, I am not asking for any reduction in the mathematical grounding of economics. Nor, furthermore, do I mean to challenge the quality or range of teaching in any fashion which has kept me studying economics at this university. What I am asking is a much more serious question, which pertains to the nature of the education in economics we receive and which I believe is deserving of careful consideration: where is the literature in economics? How are we to be made aware of the history of the profession, and correspondingly to know from where the profession is progressing relative to where it has been? How would a Sub-Honours economist know that elements of economics as we know it today existed before Marshall first put a supply and demand graph on a whiteboard, or even before Keynes published The General Theory in 1936? Is there no way for the department, even if at the cost of adding a module or not repeating AS/AD and IS-LM models from introductory to intermediate macro in as in depth of a fashion, to provide a starting point for students to explore?
I hope that these questions find you well and that, where the department deems prudent, they may be explored for the benefit of the student body more generally. I would be happy to sit down and discuss them in greater detail, and hope that they reflect a genuine starting point for further discussion.
Thank you for your time.
I sent this message to the department in the hopes of starting a dialogue about changing the way we are taught economics here at St Andrews. At Professor De Groots request, I have replicated it here.
Feel free to comment your own comments/questions!
Hello Oliver,
I am a student of economics currently taking your macro course and have decided to take a bit of time to reach out to you as pertaining to questions or constructive comments about the degree program. I love economics, and more importantly, I love the kinds of questions that economics asks. I also understand that the department is in the process of trying to develop its curriculum in order to both deepen and diversify the type of course material taught to students. Correspondingly, I would like to ask a couple of questions and raise a couple of points of constructive criticism in the hopes that it can start a dialogue where my position as a student can be of assistance to the professors teaching the course.
On the one hand, I am aware that my position as a student means I am not entirely certain of everything that is covered in every module, and that my place in the economics degree track means I may very well have yet to see through some of the questions I wish to ask which as of now remain unanswered or unaddressed. On the other, as a student of economics who has taken very seriously the need to study the field as a whole, I feel I am well placed to at least provide starting points for further dialogue.
My first question pertains to the diversity of subject matter provided within the courses. Having taking the introductory courses in macro and micro, as well as the first semester of econometrics, I have discovered that largely only three different forms of analysis, naturally in varying forms, are used: equilibrium, profit maximization, and cost minimization.
Naturally, understanding the basics of economics, I am aware these are all rightly regarded as essential learning for economics students, and to not afford sufficient time to them would prove enormously detrimental, so my first question defers to your authority: Is there any way to incorporate more elements into these analytical tools once the basics have been taught? But for one lecture in my first semester of first year, for example, I cannot recall any significant grappling with the concept of externalities, or how a policy analyst not taking the form of a business official might conceive of improving the general welfare where relevant.
TO STUDENTS, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE ADDED/INCORPORATED INTO OUR CLASSWORK?
This is not an idle appeal to drown economics in all the other social sciences purely for the sake of diversity. I am well aware of the need for such considerations to factor prominently in the education of any employable economist. But upon doing a little bit of research, I even discovered that policy prescriptions which are rightly viewed as common sense, such as Keynesian economic theory, were largely absent from the series of textbooks we used in our first year (Mankiw's Macroeconomics) until protests from students demanded a diversification from the focus purely upon the neoclassical model. Imagine if you had graduated from university and taken a position at a public policy organization like the Fed having had at most two years of proper experience with Keynesian theory! Taking contemporary developments in economic thinking seriously, far from being a burden, would enable the graduates of St Andrews to exercise their judgement within and across various methodologies more critically and continue to stand on the frontier of the profession as they always have.
My second question draws upon similar lines. Before arriving to university, my initial interaction with economics, the one which brought me to study it at this level, was through the literature of economics. It was by reading the lively discussions of writers as far flung from one another as Keynes, Marshall, Marx, Pigou, Schumpeter, Hayek, Mises, Brady, Smith, and the like which made the kinds of questions economists talk about today so lively. By contrast, the day I signed up for classes at University here, I was sincerely disappointed when I was nearly laughed out tout court for construing economics as anything but glorified mathematics.
Once again, for clarification, I am not asking for any reduction in the mathematical grounding of economics. Nor, furthermore, do I mean to challenge the quality or range of teaching in any fashion which has kept me studying economics at this university. What I am asking is a much more serious question, which pertains to the nature of the education in economics we receive and which I believe is deserving of careful consideration: where is the literature in economics? How are we to be made aware of the history of the profession, and correspondingly to know from where the profession is progressing relative to where it has been? How would a Sub-Honours economist know that elements of economics as we know it today existed before Marshall first put a supply and demand graph on a whiteboard, or even before Keynes published The General Theory in 1936? Is there no way for the department, even if at the cost of adding a module or not repeating AS/AD and IS-LM models from introductory to intermediate macro in as in depth of a fashion, to provide a starting point for students to explore?
I hope that these questions find you well and that, where the department deems prudent, they may be explored for the benefit of the student body more generally. I would be happy to sit down and discuss them in greater detail, and hope that they reflect a genuine starting point for further discussion.
Thank you for your time.
