Take economics as an extra subject for LC?

emacc

Should i consider taking economics as an extra subject ?
A friend convinced me that it was an easy subject ?
I do business and enjoy it and im wondering if it would be hard to take it by myself and do say 3-5 hours per week.

Im starting 5th/6th year, as in leaving cert next June.

Could i get a b2 or better in higher from 3-5 hours a week in a year ?

Could someone who has taken economics comment on how hard it is and if my idea is crazy o do-able.. ?
And generally give advice ?

DC09

emacc wrote: »

Should i consider taking economics as an extra subject ?
A friend convinced me that it was an easy subject ?
I do business and enjoy it and im wondering if it would be hard to take it by myself and do say 3-5 hours per week.

Im starting 5th/6th year, as in leaving cert next June.

Could i get a b2 or better in higher from 3-5 hours a week in a year ?

Could someone who has taken economics comment on how hard it is and if my idea is crazy o do-able.. ?
And generally give advice ?

I did this last year, without trying to sound cocky:P, I think I managed the exam ok.
You can definitely leave out certain chapters in the Macro section (2nd half of the course) as the exam has a lot of choice.

I would say go for it, and maybe put in a little more than 5 hours a week, about 6-8 hours and you would be grand..
If you only have 3-5 to spare you'll probably still be ok.

emacc

DC09 wrote: »

I did this last year, without trying to sound cocky:P, I think I managed the exam ok.
You can definitely leave out certain chapters in the Macro section (2nd half of the course) as the exam has a lot of choice.

I would say go for it, and maybe put in a little more than 5 hours a week, about 6-8 hours and you would be grand..
If you only have 3-5 to spare you'll probably still be ok.

Cheers

Did you take it as a n extra subject in one year ?

From looking through the exam papers online i was able for questions like
*3 aims of the government
*Affects of an increase in minimum wage
*Effects of emigration
*Benefits of increasing tax base
That sorta general knowledge thing

What i didnt know was anything formula related and graphs.

There were also words that I had'nt seen before but it would be merely learning their definitions.

So i have a business-related-common sense level of knowledge on it as it stands.

Also, i seen like a 25 mark question. A lot of them in questions actually.
For business anything in the 25-30 mark range gets an A4 and a half.. Same deal with economics ?

spurious

Is there a particular reason you want to take on an extra subject?

DC09

emacc wrote: »

Cheers

Did you take it as a n extra subject in one year ?

Also, i seen like a 25 mark question. A lot of them in questions actually.
For business anything in the 25-30 mark range gets an A4 and a half.. Same deal with economics ?

Yeah, I started at the end of September and finished the course at the start of April. Did around 2 chapters a week...
I used the text book for Microeconomics and Rapid Revision for Macroeconomics (I would reccommend this, as the textbook has a lot of useless info for Macro)

Usually, no. of points wise, it is the same as business, although sometimes you will have to draw a graph or two (Which I think is easier than writing anyway)

WallyGUFC

I'd say go for it if you're willing to put in the work. It's do-able in a year and a lot of it is topical and common sense. Personally I hated it in 5th year and failed the Summer test. Started getting grinds this year and got an A1 in the mocks and am pretty confident of getting an A in the real thing. It's probably one of the best subjects for doing in a year imo.

emacc

spurious wrote: »

Is there a particular reason you want to take on an extra subject?

Cos im a bit naieve and think that itd be a good thing to say and basically bum yourself up a bit.. Yes Mr.Interviewer you can give me the job.. AS a personal project i took on economics and got .. blah blah blah
Yeah i need a life but heck !

DC09 wrote: »

Yeah, I started at the end of September and finished the course at the start of April. Did around 2 chapters a week...
I used the text book for Microeconomics and Rapid Revision for Macroeconomics (I would reccommend this, as the textbook has a lot of useless info for Macro)

Usually, no. of points wise, it is the same as business, although sometimes you will have to draw a graph or two (Which I think is easier than writing anyway)

K.. Is it easy ?
My biggest fear will be that il plow that much time into it that i cant pull out and il end up having put that much effort into it that my other subjects will be neglected because of it .
basically what im looking for is minimum effort in an easy subject to give me a b2 or better.. Is that gonna happen ?

WallyGUFC wrote: »

I'd say go for it if you're willing to put in the work. It's do-able in a year and a lot of it is topical and common sense. Personally I hated it in 5th year and failed the Summer test. Started getting grinds this year and got an A1 in the mocks and am pretty confident of getting an A in the real thing. It's probably one of the best subjects for doing in a year imo.

Cool.. DO you have to know the workings and thoughts ofvarious ecomists ? eg Friedman etc etc

WallyGUFC

emacc wrote: »

Cool.. DO you have to know the workings and thoughts ofvarious ecomists ? eg Friedman etc etc

Some will say yes, but I say no. I didn't look at them at all, not sure if they even came up tbh. They can throw a dirty 20 marker in 1 of your banker questions but you only have to do 4 of 8 long questions so it's grand. Read Business sections of papers and watch the news for up to date figures nearer the test itself. Personally I avoided market structure questions and went for more topical ones eg. unemployment and the tax system. Figures are handy here.

Little A

My experience is from many (may) years ago.

Dropped out of an engineering course as I realised I couldn;t see myself doing that for life & decided I would go down the business route.

So at the start of March I decided to repeat in June and took up 2 new subjects (bus. org & ecomonics) and honours maths.

Economics was great. I really enjoyed it and its a neat, short course - once you can get your head around it. I did do some grind in the Institute with a guy called John Lynam (he also wrote the book we used), not sure if it's still in print, but worth getting hold of an old print, even if the course is abit different. He really had a knack of explaining things in a very simple way.

The main thing he taught us was to have a good understanding of the fundamental so you can explain them in an easy way and be able to use recent/current examples.....soumds obvious but it works.

I managed to get a B after just 3 months....should have been an A but I was abit lazy. Got a B in Bus Org also, but thats a far bigger course and very waffley. we won't talk about the hon maths!!!!

If nothing else, Economics is a good foundation for anyone.

spurious

emacc wrote: »

Cos im a bit naieve and think that itd be a good thing to say and basically bum yourself up a bit.. Yes Mr.Interviewer you can give me the job.. AS a personal project i took on economics and got .. blah blah blah
Yeah i need a life but heck !

As long as it doesn't adversely affect your other subjects, all is well. You will need to honestly judge if that becomes the case.

In the old sense of doing the LC (becoming an educated person, not just getting points) economics is a good subject to have an understanding of.