About Our Offerings
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Economics is a social science. Economics deals with how land and other natural resources, machines and equipment, labor and entrepreneurship are allocated to satisfy society’s demand for goods and services. Economics interrelates with the other social science disciplines such as political science, geography, anthropology, and sociology. Economics as a discipline provides a framework that can contribute to understanding in many fields.
Economics is a problem-solving discipline. The greatest benefit of an economics education is its logical and analytical approach to understanding social concerns. Economists study some of the most important issues of society such as inflation, unemployment, pollution, poverty, income distribution and the public debt, just to name a few.
As an economics major/minor you will learn to use the traditional tools and concepts of economics as well as the theories and quantitative analysis applicable to understanding real world problems. The successful completion of the program of study prepares students for entry level positions in private business and government, or admission to graduate school.
The economics major is unique in its applied focus, one which is different from the mainly theoretical majors at CSU and CU. Our program maintains coherence by providing a solid theoretical foundation culminating in several application courses which teach students how to function in their first job as an economic analyst or someone interpreting real-world events from the economic perspective. The application courses also allow majors to specialize in some facet of economics beyond the core courses.
Our economics program provides students with opportunities to engage in undergraduate research and apply their economic knowledge to real world problems via connection with faculty research, directed studies, honors theses and internships. A major strength of our program is our ability to focus on the undergraduate economics experience, without the distraction of a graduate program, to prepare the successful student to immediately contribute to society in their first job.
The Economics program’s vision is made up of three interconnected goals. The program’s first goal is to contribute to the economic literacy of students at UNC. We accomplish this by providing courses that contribute to general education, Environmental Studies, Life of the Mind, the International Studies program (formerly International Trade and Relations), the Social Sciences program, Women’s Studies, and the Honors program. The Economics program is unique in its sustained commitment and contribution to interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programs at UNC.
The second objective is to serve our majors and minors. We seek to provide these students with a solid and balanced grounding in discipline content and skills in applying content to real world settings, problem solving and analytics.
The third element of our vision is to provide exemplary service to the community outside UNC. This includes local community work in economic analysis, economic content training for teachers, and scholarly contributions to the external academic community that benefits the development and dissemination of knowledge to colleagues and their students. Economics was given UNC’s departmental award for service in 2002.
How to contact the program:
Office: Candelaria 1281
Hours: 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Coordinator: Laura Connolly
E-mail: laura.connolly@unco.edu
Phone: (970) 351-1558 (Coordinator)
Administrative Assistant: Denise Connell
E-mail: denise.connell@unco.edu
Phone: (970) 351-2739 (Administrative Assistant)
