OP - economist here. I hope your kid realizes that he really needs to take the harder math classes for the econ major to be worth much .

Not calc for economists, but plain old calc.

Not stats for social scientists but real stats, followed by real econometrics.

If he can learn some statistical programming, that would be great.

Without a ton more quant work, there may be plenty of good careers, but not in economics.

How close to business is an Econ major?

Anonymous wrote:Outside STEM degrees, the econ degree is probably the most valuable college degree to have in terms of the doors it opens for you.

Econ actually has the average highest career earning among liberal arts majors. This result is somewhat skewed, however, because (1) many schools don't offer a business degree, so kids who want to make money will gravitate toward Econ instead of other liberal arts; and (2) a disproportionate number of CEOs major in Econ, so there is a statistical skew at the high-end of the curve.

But to OP's original question, Econ is a somewhat broad category, and job's and opportunities vary based on your focus. For example, students who are strong in math and study finance, can get a job on Wall Street, while others can do development work.

Journalism. Most other I know went into consulting or ended up in law school (and are now lawyers)

Outside STEM degrees, the econ degree is probably the most valuable college degree to have in terms of the doors it opens for you.

I am a Fed working in a statistical office. We hire lots of econ majors ( or did when we could hire!)

I went to grad school and then worked at the World Bank.

Econ major then MBA and became an executive at a major credit card company

I did Econ for my undergrad then an MBA in supply chain management. I’m now a consultant making $175K plus annual bonuses of $20-50K

Anonymous wrote: I thought that econ was the largest major at a number of the ivies.

It is. No business schools at most of them.

I'm a government consultant - Good pay, questionable impact

IMF, World Bank, Treasury, consulting

I thought that econ was the largest major at a number of the ivies.

In New Zealand, an econ major was a recent prime minister

Anonymous wrote:I know 2 Econ majors, both are feds. One in the congressional budget office, one in the government accountability office.

+1, my fed agency employs a bunch of economists. They are mostly GS 13s and 14s so it's not the highest paying work in this area, but not too bad.