INGA KRISTOFFERSON: Alright, we will start by saying that the University
of Western Australia acknowledges that its campus is situated on Noongar land,
and that Noongar people remain the spiritual and cultural custodians
of the land and continue to practise their values, languages, beliefs and knowledge.
So, here's a little outline of what I'll be talking about in this little video.
It's broadly based on the sort of questions we tend to get on Open Day.
So the first one that I usually get is, "what's economics all about”,
"what do economists do” and “why should I study economics?", closely followed by "where does it
lead” and “what are some jobs I might get in economics?". And then once we’ve covered those
points, they ask me how they can study economics at UWA, so I'll try to cover these points here.
So what is economics? Here are some sound bites. I would say economics is the study
of how we make choices and how these choices affect our well being today and in the future.
I would say that economics is a social science which encompasses philosophy,
psychology, politics, history, mathematics, and statistics, and the list goes on. And I
would say that economics develops and applies simple but powerful models to understand complex
systems. And, this allows us to understand the most complex system that I know of which is the
world and society. So it allows us to understand how the world works - pretty powerful stuff. And
in the picture, you see here, I've got a map for you. This is a map of the world and the colours
here indicate the general population tendencies in self-reported happiness. The darker the colour,
the happier people tend to be in that country. And as you can see, the happiest countries tend to be
the North America, Brazil there, the northern European countries and Australia and New Zealand.
Now, if I were to show you a similar map, where the colour indicated economic activity and wealth
or indicators of human development including information on health and education,
then you would be likely to see a very similar colour scheme.
Now, what does this mean? While it might not necessarily mean that money buys happiness,
it certainly does mean that if you don't have enough to ensure basic needs are met,
you are definitely going to restrict people's ability to live fulfilling lives.
And therein lies the crux of the economic problem. It's about allocation and how we
use our resources. So, the point of showing you this picture is to try and make it clear to you
that economics is about much more than understanding how firms make profit.
It is about wealth creation, but it's also about a broader definition of the concept of wealth
and it's about how we manage this wealth to improve the human lot. So in many ways, economics
is about how we make decisions. And this year most countries around the world have had to make one
particular very tough decision about how they choose to respond to the Coronavirus pandemic.
And, not every country has made the same choice. Sweden chose to make a very different
choice compared to neighbouring Norway. You may have read about how Sweden chose
not to impose strict lockdown, and so chose to accept the risks with respect to health
in order to safeguard the economy. Norway took the other view, imposing swift and dramatic lockdown
on March 12. And, as you can see, the Norwegian lockdown was effective in curbing infection.
We see...if I can get my mouse back here, we have Norway and Finland down the bottom here
compared to Denmark and then United States, and way on top, we have Sweden in terms of
total confirmed infections... oh, this is deaths actually per million people,
OK. So, the lockdown in Norway was effective health-wise in the short term here,
but it did come at a dramatic short term cost in terms of welfare payments most specifically,
and the question is where we weigh up these two choices between
immediate health concerns and immediate and long term economic concerns?
We really are trying to make the right decision about what’s going to have the best
impact in the future, and it's a difficult choice to make, and the future will tell what happens.
But, the situation with the ongoing pandemic has certainly succeeded in putting economics
right and centre in the spotlight here. The way we respond to the pandemic is all about how we
trade off health, wellbeing and wealth. And, it's about the short and long term consequences
of the choices that we make today. Now, I thought it would be interesting to ask one of our own
Economics graduates about their perspective on what economics is about and so I asked
my friend Damien Lenzo who completed an honours degree in economics with us
recently. And here's what he said. He says, "Economists use mathematical and statistical
models to uncover recurring patterns of behaviour of individuals and groups. By understanding these
patterns, we can make predictions about whether particular choices and policies will be successful
and improve the wellbeing of others. The study of economics is for people who are problem solvers,
who enjoy diving deep into data and who want to work on human issues." Great quote!
OK, I think I've already given you lots of reasons why studying economics is an excellent choice but
that's from my perspective. I live and breathe economics.
I see it from a slightly biased perspective. So, I'm gonna try and see it from your perspective
and think of the top five reasons why you might wanna study economics. So here they are. Firstly,
it is challenging and it is intellectually stimulating.
Secondly, it's a powerful and important tool for understanding and improving the human lot.
Thirdly, it broadens and deepens your understanding of other disciplines,
it's a great complementary major with a lot of other disciplines that you can study here at UWA,
and you get to learn along with the top students of the state and internationally. We get the best
students here and you also get to learn along with leading international economics experts.
The last important point is that UWA economics graduates go to great places. They are highly
regarded by key employers across the nation, both in private and public sectors. And I'll
expand about that shortly. So there you are, the top five reasons as far as I can tell.
OK, where do economics graduates work? Our graduates go to lots of different places,
many go to the private sector, finding work in places like banks and financial institutions,
large national and multinational companies and consultancy firms. Some of these companies, you
can see their logos here. And we also have a lot of graduates finding work in the public sector,
such as the Reserve Bank of Australia and Treasury and the Productivity Commission to name a few.
And of course, we have the large, multilateral organisations like the
International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organisation, and so on.
And then there are people, like me, who end up in academia or in higher education and training,
and we have people working in the media with journalism, etc, etc.
So, many of our graduates start out by being accepted into very good graduate programs at
some of these institutions. And, I don't think a lot of people are aware of just how competitive
our economics graduates actually are. For example, in one of the recent annual intakes of graduates,
in the very prestigious and highly competitive graduate program at the RBA,
our own graduates here from UWA snapped up at least as many places as graduates from the
top universities in the eastern states. So, our graduates are highly regarded,
they are very good, well-trained people and the employers know this.
And consequently, our graduates usually end up with placements before they finish their studies
and end up doing very well indeed, very proud of that. OK, how do we study economics? So, there are
two main choices. You can study it as a single major, combined with something else. Popular
combinations include finance, that's the top choice, environmental science, population health,
natural resource management and political science. I also have had students combining economics with
psychology, which is really cool. And so there's lots of different choices and options available.
In terms of structure and content, you will start in first year with two basic Level 1 units,
and then continue with three Level 2 units, finishing with three Level 3 units.
And these units are a mix of core microeconomics, macroeconomics and data analysis skills,
and then some choices in applied areas such as policy, game theory, health development,
trade, banking, and finance, and history. So it's a single major. We also have the combined
bachelor and master's program which is an economics specialisation program.
This is for students who want to pursue a career as an economist.
It provides an accelerated pathway for students to obtain two degrees in just four years.
The entry requirements is high. It's a minimum ATAR of 90 or through strong results in your
first year of study. Students might exit after three years with a Bachelor of Economics degree,
or they can continue on with honours, if selected, or masters. And the structure goes
something like this, in Years 1, 2, 3, you do a mix of first and second and third year units,
but you also do four Level 4 or 5 units which are advanced economics study units.
Another important feature is that, in Year three, you get this guaranteed capstone experience which
is a choice of an internship, research project or an international experience. So this is a bit
different from your standard coursework that you otherwise would get. And in Year four, as I said,
you could be invited to do honours which implies a dissertation and some coursework or you can go on
and do masters which also involves coursework and an option of a dissertation as well.
Now, when I go around on Open Day, there are a lot of other types of questions I get as well. And
these are some of those. For example, I often get asked
whether it's a problem to not have studied economics at high school. And, the answer is "no,
we start from scratch." We don't assume any prior information or knowledge about
economics at all. And I get asked, "is economics very quantitative, how much "maths is required?",
and the answer to that is "well, to some extent, some areas are very quantitative,
but others are less so." So depending on whether you... if you have only a single major, you can
choose to some extent whether you want to go into the very quantitative types of economics units or
not, but do you ever want us to do some core micro and macroeconomics and some data analysis skills.
And relatedly, people ask me "is Mathematical Applications (ATAR) enough to study economics?",
and the answer to that is, "yes, but if you don't have the higher level
maths, you will need to do these little unit called 'quantitative methods' and that will bring
your skills up to the level that's required.” Finally, they ask, "what's the difference between
a Bachelor of Economics and a single major in economics?". And, I've already addressed this,
but I will specify this again. So the Bachelor of Economics is a specialised degree for students
pursuing a career as an economist and it is open to students with an ATAR of 90 and above.
A single major in economics provides a general training in economics to complement another major.
OK, that's all from me. I've run out of time. But if you want to know more
about the economics single major or the combined bachelor and master's degree,
please come and seek us out. And I hope that you'll find some of our staff can answer all
of your questions. I wish you all the best in making the right choice for your future.