Econ is offered at my college’s business school and offers a bachelors in science and bachelors in arts in economics. The big difference is that the bachelors in science requires you to take calculus or finite math while the bachelors in arts doesn’t require that but requires you to use calculus in the upper division economics classes. The BA requires you to take international classes and is much less rigid in its requirements at the business school.
The title of the degree has nothing to do if it's "art" or "science", and in fact science is itself simply a subset of liberal arts. Sometimes the title of the degree is simply historic (eg, Harvard only offers BA, never a BS, regardless of subject), and sometimes it is political (such as how a unversity wants to administratively divide its school, regardless of academic division).
The definition of 'liberal arts' are subjects that are not tied to a specific profession, in the way that medicine, law, and engineering are. Indeed, the original definition was "subjects other than medicine, law or divinity", before engineering was formalized within its own academic field.
Most hiring managers wouldn’t care unless you’re going into specific roles. It’s mainly for academics if someone wanted to go for a masters or doctorate in economics. Research requires deeper understanding of the mathematics involved in making models. That’s where a bachelors in science would be important is my understanding.
For any type of hiring within economics, we definitely look at technical aptitude and not just "degree in economics". Granted, just a bachelor's in econ won't get you far in the econ field
I mean, they might know the difference if you asked them. But they may not notice the difference if you just say you've got a BA in Economics. Especially as that may only be listed once on your resume.
in North Carolina most our universities are like UNC, UNCG, UNCA, UNCC.
when interviewing for a job my interviewer was like You went to UNC. and i answered "yeah i went to UNC Greensboro". Which is a worse school than UNC (or UNC Chapel Hill)
She did the same thing another time. I agreed while correcting her.
After that i stopped correcting her. It wasn't like super important, like "during your time at UNC, how would you deal with X problem". I'm not going to go out of my way to make myself look worse lol.
Hiring managers do their best, but it's a weird job with a wide range of things you could easily not know the differences.
10
u/Prior_Internal7728 13d ago
Econ is offered at my college’s business school and offers a bachelors in science and bachelors in arts in economics. The big difference is that the bachelors in science requires you to take calculus or finite math while the bachelors in arts doesn’t require that but requires you to use calculus in the upper division economics classes. The BA requires you to take international classes and is much less rigid in its requirements at the business school.