Would you like to do graduate work in economics? Here's some advice:
§ Prepare yourself by taking plenty of math courses. You will need a more-than-basic knowledge of calculus, matrix algebra, probability theory, mathematical statistics, differential equations, and real analysis. Here are the math courses taken by a recent undergraduate preparing for a Ph.D. program in economics:
In her first
semester at graduate school, this same student reported: 'I've used every bit
of math that I took--Calculus I, II, and III, Differential Equations,
Foundations of Higher Math, Linear Algebra, Statistics--and I've used all of it
a lot already. My advice to anyone going to an Economics PhD program is to...
double major in Math and Economics...'
§ Economics is a social science; an economist needs to know something about philosophy, biology, psychology, history, sociology, political science, and anthropology. Pick courses that you think are really interesting - they will help you discover the kind of work you want to do as an economist.
§ A computational revolution is sweeping economics, as cheap computing power offers the possibility of doing whole new kinds of analyses. Most of the software is free and open-source. I recommend that you familiarize yourself with these four packages: R (use it with the GUI RStudio), Python (taught at MTSU in the introductory Computer Science course—CSCI 1170), Octave (an open-source alternative to MATLAB), and Maxima (an open-source alternative to Mathematica).