How much do entry-level economists actually know?

brightlynx11 said:I honestly don't get you people. 😁

I'm halfway through my PhD in Economics, and during breaks from reading textbooks on dynamic optimization, I play Jedi Academy. What's the big deal? The games aren't even that bad—it's just how I blow off steam. 😛

yeah, but I think most people would agree the real issue is when kids are reading books during their breaks from gaming.

I think you guys are lowballing video games. Some of them are pure reflex training, while others actually demand a decent IQ and some quick thinking.
Take Tetris, for example—that’s probably the only way to actually build spatial intelligence. And don't even get me started on strategy games or RPGs. Even FPS titles require serious brainpower.

In my book, fighting on forums is a much worse way to spend time—being an internet warrior is basically the ultimate waste of life.

Reading books is great, sure, but it gets tedious. People learn way better through interaction, and that’s exactly where our American education system falls short.

Like, my absolute worst exam in college was Business Law. That whole subject was just endless, mindless memorization of sentences. I can't remember ever putting in that much effort for something that gave me such zero payoff.

It would have been so much better if I'd actually learned the material and had at least one practical part to the exam—like being handed a contract or a promissory note filled with errors in form or content and having to spot and fix them.
A Case Study is a massive tool for learning, and the American school system seriously needs to figure out how to use it. That’s supposed to be the whole point of the Bologna Process—linking theory to practice.
The EU hasn't really changed how subjects are taught, because the old-school faculty wouldn't or couldn't change the ways they've been lecturing for fifty years. All they did was compress courses into single semesters, cut their own hours, and pile even more pressure on the students. Look at Principles of Economics—it's such a mess you can't tell who's running the show. The material is completely disorganized because everyone blindly follows Samuelson, which is a solid book, but not for American students.

What's the result? You finish four years of college grinding through exams, only to hit real-world testing and realize your brain is a total blank slate. If you aren't using knowledge, you're going to lose it—especially if you just crammed the night before an exam just to scrape by with a C. It never sticks.

Look, sorry, but back when I was at my business school, we did a ton of Case Studies, all kinds of problems and term papers that forced us to actually dig into market trends and run deep dives on how specific companies operated.

The only real headache was how disconnected those firms were from the university—it made grabbing hard data nearly impossible—but the top-tier students always found a way to scrape something together and turn out some seriously interesting work. Besides, you can't just teach everything that way; take Law, for example. Like, who's to blame if you studied from some garbage study guide and ended up not knowing what a promissory note even looks like?

I don't know, maybe it depends on the major, but at least don't generalize like that.

I spotted a promissory note at work once, so I went straight for the real thing without even looking at a study guide. Using just the first two books and a bit of luck from actual hands-on experience, I passed.😁

Jeffrey Johnson2 said:Look, sorry, but back when I was at my business school, we did a ton of Case Studies, all kinds of problems and term papers that forced us to actually dig into market trends and run deep dives on how specific companies operated.

The only real headache was how disconnected those firms were from the university—it made grabbing hard data nearly impossible—but the top-tier students always found a way to scrape something together and turn out some seriously interesting work. Besides, you can't just teach everything that way; take Law, for example. Like, who's to blame if you studied from some garbage study guide and ended up not knowing what a promissory note even looks like?

I don't know, maybe it depends on the major, but at least don't generalize like that.

Try actually reading what I wrote. 🙂
Of course I didn't see a sample promissory note when the William Gorenac textbook—yeah, I actually used books, wow, look at me—doesn't include an actual visual example of one. It lists the requirements for a note, sure, but nothing else. Not a single contract template in sight. This was freshman year. So yeah, obviously I memorized the components, but I’m pretty sure nobody ever asked me to actually apply that knowledge in the real world.

Jeffrey Johnson2 said:Look, sorry, but back when I was at my business school, we did a ton of Case Studies, all kinds of problems and term papers that forced us to actually dig into market trends and run deep dives on how specific companies operated.

The only real headache was how disconnected those firms were from the university—it made grabbing hard data nearly impossible—but the top-tier students always found a way to scrape something together and turn out some seriously interesting work. Besides, you can't just teach everything that way; take Law, for example. Like, who's to blame if you studied from some garbage study guide and ended up not knowing what a promissory note even looks like?

I don't know, maybe it depends on the major, but at least don't generalize like that.

Obviously it depends on the major. I’m Macroeconomics, which means this is actual Economics, not just Business—it's science. Seriously, I sat through a ton of classes alongside Business majors, many of which were totally useless and taught me zero practical skills. But hey, I had to memorize five different versions of management roles by five different authors just to pass the exam. It’s like studying German grammar instead of social science. My point is—people learn way better through interaction. I know this because now that I run interactive workshops as a TA, I see much higher passing rates on midterms. One requirement even forces students to design their own ten-question test to grade their peers. So, trust me, I know what I'm talking about when it comes to learning. 🙂

And for the record, my major wasn't the kind where you could just skim some cheat sheet; you actually had to think using mountains of literature. I wouldn't be halfway through a PhD right now if I had just relied on summaries. If students actually studied instead of just sucking knowledge out of thin air from study guides, maybe test scores wouldn't be so pathetic. Honestly, the way you talked to me really rubbed me the wrong way, especially since the post you jumped on was pretty harmless. Let's put it this way: I don't remember the requirements for a promissory note anymore, and nobody’s ever going to ask me about it. But I do know dynamic optimization and survival analysis. Can you say the same for yourself? 🙂

No hard feelings, man, but don't talk down to me like I'm a kid, okay? Thanks 🙂