College

DR -- Go with Economics. Statistics is so open and shut. Right vs wrong answers. Econ will give you a little more flexibility. I've taken both, at a very basic level. Not sure about your school, but mine is pretty conservative. As long as every answer focused on the free market being the best way, it was correct! (not quite that easy, but my basic strategy!)

Both of them will suck a certain amount, but I think econ is the lesser of two evils.

I would not base your decision on that. I made a conscious decision when I was deciding what college to go to not to go to the same school as my friends. College is the time to broaden your horizons, not just academically. Make new friends, meet new people. You don't want to get stuck leaning on your cousins because it's what you know. Expand your world.

I did the samething SS. Academics is only half of the college experience and Im not making a joke there. I ended up chosing Mason over Va Tech just based on the diversity of the student pop.

Yes. I dug up a 5 year old thread, because I didn't want to create a new one.

Next fall will start my last year of graduate school and right now I'm trying to figure out what classes to take. I'm a human sciences/psychology/counseling major and I've got to take a basic human science course. After registering for another class and working around my work schedule and class schedule, I'm left deciding between statistics (I'm horrible, emphasis on HORRIBLE at math. Took it in undergrad because it was required, got a C and never wanna take it again) and intro economics, something I have no idea about. I'm a little scared because I don't know what economics is going to entail, so someone with some business savvy educate me on how difficult it may be for someone who's never even fathomed the idea of having to take econ... Ever.

Here's the course description:

2012 Fall Main Session
ECON 551/Lecture/01 - Foundations of Economics | Credits 3.00
(First semester/3 credits) Introduction to the basic tools of economic analysis that are employed to examine the environment of a firm at both the microeconomic and macroeconomic levels. The micro portion focuses upon the behavior of consumers and firms in the product and resource markets. The macro portion examines the domestic and international factors that influence the aggregate level of economic activity, and the role of monetary and fiscal policies in promoting full employment, price stability and economic growth. A basic human science course.

Normal they make two course on a 101 level of economics; one MICRO one MACRO. So if they are are squeezing both into 3 credits I think this course should be fairly easy to understand and master. Has to be given at a very high level basically a overview.

Yes. I dug up a 5 year old thread, because I didn't want to create a new one.

Next fall will start my last year of graduate school and right now I'm trying to figure out what classes to take. I'm a human sciences/psychology/counseling major and I've got to take a basic human science course. After registering for another class and working around my work schedule and class schedule, I'm left deciding between statistics (I'm horrible, emphasis on HORRIBLE at math. Took it in undergrad because it was required, got a C and never wanna take it again) and intro economics, something I have no idea about. I'm a little scared because I don't know what economics is going to entail, so someone with some business savvy educate me on how difficult it may be for someone who's never even fathomed the idea of having to take econ... Ever.

Here's the course description:

2012 Fall Main Session
ECON 551/Lecture/01 - Foundations of Economics | Credits 3.00
(First semester/3 credits) Introduction to the basic tools of economic analysis that are employed to examine the environment of a firm at both the microeconomic and macroeconomic levels. The micro portion focuses upon the behavior of consumers and firms in the product and resource markets. The macro portion examines the domestic and international factors that influence the aggregate level of economic activity, and the role of monetary and fiscal policies in promoting full employment, price stability and economic growth. A basic human science course.

Of the two, you'll dig econ more. Only basic math functions will be used in this econ course, it's largely a study of human behavior, but done so graphically and with basic mathematics and logical thought processes. Very useful class in daily life, you'll gain an understanding of the way interest rates work, which can apply to mortgages to investments to loans to whatever.

Statistics is probably the single most useful class in all of undergrad, though. If you can grasp it well, the applications are endless. The most useful for your line of work would be understanding the statistical range within which the human mind would react to counseling or medical treatment for psychiatric conditions. ie with 95% confidence you could expect x kind of behavior.

What Schneed said

Of the two, you'll dig econ more. Only basic math functions will be used in this econ course, it's largely a study of human behavior, but done so graphically and with basic mathematics and logical thought processes. Very useful class in daily life, you'll gain an understanding of the way interest rates work, which can apply to mortgages to investments to loans to whatever.

Statistics is probably the single most useful class in all of undergrad, though. If you can grasp it well, the applications are endless. The most useful for your line of work would be understanding the statistical range within which the human mind would react to counseling or medical treatment for psychiatric conditions. ie with 95% confidence you could expect x kind of behavior.

As an economics major and one who took numerous statistics classes, I agree. I think statistics will be more challenging than the economic class you posted. But it will be more fruitful. Econ is always great to use to analyze human behavior. Also you'll be better versed in understanding overall economic trends and sift through the majority of the BS politicians and the media claim is impacting the "economy ".

Also do you have a description of the statistics course?

Also do you have a description of the statistics course?

Thanks for the input guys!

And hoo, yeah, here's the description of the stat class:

2012 Fall Main Session
MATH 500/Lecture/01 - Statistics | Credits 3.00
(Summer and both semesters/3 credits) Basic statistical methods as they apply to data and research in the human sciences and other fields. Topics include frequency distributions and their representations, measures of central tendency and dispersion, elementary probability, statistical sampling theory, testing hypotheses, non-parametric methods, linear regression, correlation, and analysis of variance. Each student may be required to do a statistics project under the guidance of a cooperating faculty member in a specific discipline such as biology, economics, education, political science, psychology, or sociology.

Normal they make two course on a 101 level of economics; one MICRO one MACRO. So if they are are squeezing both into 3 credits I think this course should be fairly easy to understand and master. Has to be given at a very high level basically a overview.

Yeah, I agree. It is atypical to have both micro and macro in the same class but this means that you'll just get a theoretical overview. As a former econ major like Hooskins, I say take econ.

If I had seen this 5 years ago, my reply would have been:

I'd remove Penn State from the list if you're serious about a quality education.

(PA resident)

Uh oh. Don't let djnemo find you!