Hacking Economics

Hello everyone, and welcome to my economics blog. I’m not an economist, nor do I know much about economics – far from it! – but I will be spending the next three years pursuing an undergraduate degree in economics, and I want to make sure that this will not turn out to be the biggest mistake of my life.

You see, I do not like economics. I think it is boring, mind-numbingly so. I’ve just completed my A-level in economics, and to be honest I would have jumped for joy if that was the last time I ever had to crack open an economics book. Inflation, GDP, fiscal policy, externalities – the thought of studying these thingamajigs at tertiary level, with arcane equations thrown into the mix, makes me want to crawl under a box and hope that the entire economics subject would just go away.

If I hate economics so much, then why have I chosen to pursue a degree in it? Simple – I had no choice. If I had my way I would have applied to an American university, which is flexible enough to let me take courses from every field I’m interested in – astronomy, anthropology and psychology are some of my interests. Without my explaining any further, let me just say that I had only a few areas of study to choose from, due to parental pressure. If I had rebelled there would have been no possibility of going to university. And I believe in the merits and value of higher education, even if it is in a discipline I dislike. To me a degree, especially a non-vocational degree like economics, is merely an indicator of a certain level of intellectual ability – I will hopefully be able to find non-economics related graduate jobs in the future. The financial rewards I stand to gain if I invest three years of my time in higher level study should be more than enough to cover the opportunity cost of me studying a subject that I do not enjoy.

But I am not going to condemn myself to three years of misery just yet. I’m not going down without a fight. In the three months before I commence my studies, I intend to do my very best to change my opinion of the subject. I will read around the subject, looking for the most interesting bits of economics that will hopefully convince me that the dismal science is really not that depressing after all (no, Freakonomics didn’t help at all).

Perhaps a considerable part of my animosity towards economics may be due to my weakness in the subject. In short, I suck at it. When studying A-level economics, I would memorize lists of factors, effects and causes of everything in the syllabus (factors of globalisation, reasons why the pound sterling is so strong, etc ad nauseum), in the hope that one of these would come up as a question in the exam and I could just regurgitate everything that I’ve learned. It has worked sometimes, but I know that rote memorization is no way to fully understand a subject. And the thing I hate most, besides studying something that I hate, is not fully understanding something. Questions that were worded differently, or required critical thinking just stumped me. I soon took to memorizing ‘evaluative points’ – little gems of ‘critical thinking’ that, when applied correctly in the exam, would earn me lots of marks. Of course this tactic would not work if a totally new question came up in the exam, which is a risk that I had to take, because I did not (and still don’t) understand basic economic principles and how to apply them to various scenarios. Fine, so I’m not a total blockhead – I do understand supply and demand, equilibrium, etc – but I’m talking about seeing the big picture. The ability to take one principle – say, monopsony theory – and see how it links with other parts of economics, and how it relates to the real world. In short, whenever I study economics, I always feel like I’m missing something. That I am looking at the world through a rolled-up newspaper, such that I can only glimpse a little at a time.

Maybe it was because I never tried. Maybe I had no time, what with three other subjects demanding my attention as well. Maybe humans are just not natural economic thinkers. Whatever. I am not going to surrender just yet. This is my project for the summer holidays – to gain a good grounding of basic economic principles, and to learn to love the subject – if love is too strong an emotion, then at least a grudging respect for a worthy opponent.

I am not sure how many people would be interested in reading a student’s endless whines about economics – but if anyone has any words of encouragement, advice, criticism, etc – do leave a comment. I’ll be very happy to hear from you