Hi Everyone!

Hope exams are going well =)

I am just wondering - is taking micro and macro econ in the same semester a good idea. I really like economics - but i am not sure if I can handle both econs in one semester - any advice would be greatly appreciated

Could you be more specific when you say "not handle both econ's in one semester". Is that due to the horrific workload required? Or that all the useful knowledge you gain will just cause a major mind-explosion?

Seriously. Go take Peace Studies or some shit. Don't waste your time on this.

bad idea...primarily bcoz i have heard that both econs midterms take place on the same day-saturday...and also it can get confusing...they are both easy courses if u take them separately in two different terms...

I wasn't going to comment on the difficulty of the course, but I think it might be good to bring balance to the above poster's (=dmzz) opinion. But now that I look again, I'm not sure how much of that was sarcasm.

I skipped all the Microecon lectures after the two weeks or so. Ended up with an 8. Not the best mark, I'm sure, but that could have been easily improved had I spent more than an hour studying for each test and the exam. The Powerpoints are really all you need to look at, aside from football trivia to score those bonus questions. =p.

I found Macroeconomics a bit more challenging. I put forth a lot more effort, attended more than half the lectures, and still only ended up with an 8. I'd recommend going to these lectures, as the slides aren't posted online and O'Shaughnessy's teaching style is different than Hannah Holmes'. I didn't really like her at first, but I realized her teaching method worked and had a strange sort of appreciation by the time the term was over.

The first few 3 weeks or so are the same in each course, so that should help a lot. I'd never considered the possibility of taking both the same term, but having a similar mindset throughout a four-month period might improve both marks. Also, you may only have to pay for Aplia once.

I don't think the workload for either course was ever anything to worry about. From what I hear, Microecon changed second term last year so that the Aplia assignments were much longer, but there were only three per term as opposed to ten. Also, I think the addition of weekly quizzes were a good idea too, since it sort of forced you to keep up with the material (unlike what I did). They're ten marks each, and I think only your best six are considered.

Macroecon had the weekly Aplia assignments, but the answers can almost always be found explicitly in the textbook, and even if they're not, you get multiple attempts (the average mark is taken) per question so you can learn from your mistakes.

I'd say go for it, especially if you're in Commerce. But then again, a Commerce student may be able to relate to your situation more than I.

On a similar note, would it be wise to take Macroecon before Micro? Also, I heard that the two courses are fairly easy regardless of your background (from high school) in business. I have not taken a single business course in high school, so I'm uncertain if I should be taking it now...I just want a bird course as a first year elective =)

My other elective is Environmental Science.

Last year I took both econs first semester and it wasn't a huge problem. As Entropy said, the first 3 weeks are pretty much the same, which means that the first midterms are also pretty similar. Yes, both midterms will be on the same Saturday, one morning and one afternoon. I'm pretty sure the finals were also on back to back days. If you didn't take econ in high school you might have a problem keeping the information separate. If you took either grade 11 or 12 econ in high school, first year basically recaps those adding in a couple of concepts so you will have a huge advantage. In terms of aplia, I know there have been changes so I'm not sure what that's like now. I purchased the textbooks in the set with both texts and aplia. It happened that there was only one aplia card but I think they fixed it so you didn't have to buy another one but I'm not positive. If you are confident with econ, don't bother with the text, aplia has one online and it isn't really necessary.

Basically, if you did well in highschool econ and you don't mind having back to back Saturday midterms, it's not as bad as people make it out to be. I wouldn't suggest people do it but I wouldn't completely discourage it either.

LOL, worried about micro/macro in each semester? These are two of the easiest courses at mac, and the first month or so is a complete overlap between the two courses.

I'd say it depends on the person, but neither course is terribly hard. I took Macro and Micro in my first semester at Mac and had no problems doing well in both of them. Overall, I'd say it depends more on the convenience (i.e. do both courses fit really well into your schedule?) than the actual difficulty itself.

Thanks everyone =)

I want to minor in Econ, and I really dont wanna waste $500 on something that I wont even use (but I dont want my GPA going down the drain)

I did econ in high school and did fairly okay - I dont mind having back to back midterms - I intend to study but will studying make me do okay on the back to back midterms is my worry.

Going for it for about a week and then seeing if I can do okay would be good right?

I wouldn't worry about the workload, micro/macro are quite light and shouldn't take up to much of your time, especially if you already have some background knowledge.