Meet Your Major
As an economics major, you’ll study how individuals and groups make decisions with limited resources.
Going beyond the fundamentals of business and finance, you’ll examine the forces that drive today’s complex global economy — supply and demand, profitability and employment. Through the focused curriculum, you’ll learn how markets work and deepen your understanding of how people and society operate.
What You’ll Learn
In this program, you will:
- Examine the social relationships involved in the problems of resource allocation, production, exchange, and distribution.
- Understand the causes and consequences of national economic events, and how they’re influenced by economic policy.
- Explore the relationship between historical events and the development of economic theory.
- Learn how social relationships affect the allocation, production, exchange, and distribution of resources.
- Develop your skills in working with numbers, including deriving and interpreting quantitative measurements.
Hands-On Learning
You can exercise and demonstrate your skills by completing in-depth research through internships and directed studies programs.
Internships
Recent internships include:
- Financial advisor intern, Northwestern Mutual
- Financial counseling intern, Goldman Sachs
- Intern, Massachusetts State House
- Risk management intern, Enterprise Bank
- Sales and marketing intern, North Star Resource Group
Directed Studies
Recent directed studies include:
- Financial analysis of the social security system
- Socioeconomic indicators of Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) scores
- Economics of venture capital
- Urban and regional economic analysis
- “Moneyballing” hockey
- Marketing and sales analysis in information technology
Career Options
Economists are trained to think analytically and critically to solve complex problems, acting as a generalist in a world of specialists. Our alumni work in finance, law, banking, data analysis, government, sales, marketing, business management, and education.
Some of our graduates have worked in the following positions:
- Associate, Ropes & Gray LLC
- Consultant, Analysis Group
- Investment bank analyst, The Carlyle Group
- Sourcing manager, Nike
- Tax associate, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
Economics Major Requirements
General Education Requirements
In addition to the major requirements below, you will also need to complete Merrimack’s general education requirements.
As an economics major, you must complete all institutional degree requirements, including the core curriculum in liberal studies, earn a minimum of 124 credits and have a grade point average of 2.0 or higher. To see more details about the major, please visit catalog.merrimack.edu.
Introduction to Economics
You should first take ECO 1203 – Principles of Microeconomics or ECO 1204 – Principles of Macroeconomics, our gateway courses designed for all students. We also encourage you to take additional courses from the following fields which are closely allied to economics and/or prepare students for further study in economics:
- Accounting, finance, management, marketing, or statistics, for those pursuing careers in business administration.
- Political science, history, or sociology, for those interested in contemporary social problems.
- Mathematics and computer science, for those intending to earn graduate degrees in economics.
Required Courses
- ECO 1203 – Principles of Microeconomics
- ECO 1204 – Principles of Macroeconomics
- ECO 2201 – Intermediate Micro-Economics
- ECO 2202 – Intermediate Macro-Economics
Additonal Courses
Must take 5 of the following courses:
- ECO 2225 – Economics of Gender
- ECO 3303 – Sustainable Development
- ECO 3305 – Ecological Economics
- ECO 3306 – International Economics
- ECO 3310 – Money and Finance
- ECO 3311 – Public Finance
- ECO 3312 – The History of Economic Thought
- ECO 3313 – Econometrics
- ECO 4800 – Directed Study
- ECO 4850 – Economic Research Internship
