What super curricular stuff to do for Economics degree?

[Mawak]

Please could anyone help with what to do for super curricular stuff for Economics? DD really enjoyed the GCSE, but beyond that, we're not really sure where to start or what universities are looking for on an Economics application. I know it's really competitive though. She went to an open day and I think they recommended entering essay competitions. Any other ideas/something that has been successful for your dc? Thanks for any ideas.

Take a look at some economics podcasts on BBC Sounds. Read Freakonomics and similar accessible books or A Short Introduction books by OUP.

I’d agree look at podcasts that maybe relevant to business/marketing/economics. Read relevant business/economic sections.

If she can look at entering any entrepreneurship competitions at school they’d be useful - those about setting up a profitable business, dragons den style challenges.

Also she could join the online forum The Student Room. She could ask current students at her aspirational and appealing realistic choices for university what they did.

My ds entered the Royal Economic Society's young economist of the year competition. That looked pretty good on his PS as he made runner up list. So any essay competition of this kind will be good.
There are also lots of texts he can read. If he looks on the Cambridge website there will be a list he can peruse.
Volunteering in a shop can demonstrate his awareness of economics principles in practice i.e how policies (economical, social preference, International laws etc) influence supply and demand, behaviours in Economics, scarcity, inflation etc stuff like that. It's an interesting subject.

It depends what she's already studying. Is she doing maths, stats, programming, physics as part of her curriculum?

Work experience might be good.
EPQ on something relevant
Essay competitions.
DS also started / re invigorated the school economics society - got the odd speaker in I think and was especially interested in nudge theory so did some in school projects using those ideas to encourage things like cycle helmets etc.

In my day we were advised to take the FT and read The Economist 😂

Now she can listen to Podcasts, listen to TEDTalks. If you live in or near a city, there may be free lectures she can attend.

Economics is really broad from econometrics and the traditional schools of thought to more modern niches like development economics and sustainable economics.

Kate Raworth’s book “Doughnut Economics” is brilliant. It completely reimagines all the traditional assumptions about economics.

I would think something like setting up a school/college magazine or a politics & economics society with a newsletter would be particularly good. If these already exist, then contributing articles about economic issues would be good. Anything that shows she has explored aspects of econimics beyond the A-Level curriculum.

Thanks for the great info!

For those asking: A levels are Economics, Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry

Where is she thinking of applying?

Mine did a year 12 project using stats to analyse economic data downloaded from a government website, incorporating techniques from a couple of books he'd read.

Not entirely sure

Possibilities
Warwick, Exeter, Bath, St Andrews, Durham

Using a dataset to explore a question is a great idea!

One end of the country to the other then. DD used her EPQ as she applied for PPE without any of the components at A level.

These are the books currently recommended as an intro for Oxford economics:

Core Econ Textbook: free online introduction to economics found at core- econ.org/the- economy/?lang=en
T Harford, The Undercover Economist
A Banarjee and E Duflo, Poor Economics
D Helm, The Economic Borders of the State
A Dixit and B Nalebuff, Thinking Strategically
R Thaler, Misbehaving

Tim Harford books are very accessible

A language would be useful if she intends to work in one of the big investment banks.
Languages such as Spanish, French, German and Mandarin are particularly useful.

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DD will be reading Economics and Management at Oxford (state schools) I don't think super curricular directly made any real impact to the offers she received but agree it's very competitive. Hers includes lots of UKMT comps including Olympiads and a summer school and an international maths comp (Harvard/MIT). Did not do any essay competitions or much reading but I have an Economics degree from Cambridge and have mostly worked in economics so we discuss topics like economic development, general macroeconomics from time to time. She did not have Economics or FM A levels. She did work a lot, almost full time in first year of A levels and this was very useful for interviews but she was quite unusual to have done that and it was due to her having done a variety of roles in a company and her ability to think through things like their pricing policies but in her college she's the only one who worked pre 18 in her subject. And it's really the ability to think, doing a job you switch off in won't help, doing something that makes you think like an economist will. There's also little point in doing these things if they don't interest you or just doing them as others have, need to find their own interests. Be careful not to do these to the detriment of A level grades as well. A lot of economics students do a lot of sport including DD which won't help chances of getting a place but helps to have a shared interest and helps to have a healthy body and mind. She does have a second language.

Essay Competitions
Reading and Podcasts
Online Courses and Summer Schools
Independent Research Projects
Economic Clubs and Societies
Work Experience and Internships
Conferences and Lectures

DS (Cambridge) participated in a school business enterprise, entered essay competitions and read a lot of books. He also taught himself a second language and coached in his sport.

Ds is at Warwick studying Economics which was his top choice. You need an A star in maths and entry is A star A star A for Warwick. He took maths, further maths, economics and computer science. Economics is an incredibly popular course and massively oversubscribed.

He read Freakonomics, Undercover Economist, Misbehaving and a few other books. He watched guest lectures on youtube at top unis including LSE. He did a couple of summer school econ courses, google for year 12 and see what takes her fancy. No essay competitions or anything like that. He got 4 uni offers.

It isn't necessarily about what you read/listen to/watch it is about where that led you, so for Ds he read something interesting in a book and then this led onto finding out more about this side of economics. That could be anything for your DD, so behavioural, Bank of England and the economy, wealth distribution, anything. I would advise she basically makes notes of what she discovered and where that led her. There are Econ students on youtube who share their personal statements so you can see how they did it like Sam Hillman who is at Cambridge. It is best to have lots and be able to cull down a PS than not have enough to write about. Lots of PS examples are online.

The bit I will share is that Cambridge said the PS should have wider reading and engagement with the subject, critical reflection and independence of thought. Ds's PS had I discovered, I explored, through this I found, this led me to etc while he weighed up what he found interesting. He absolutely loves Economics.

The FT offers free subscriptions for students aged 16-19: https://www.ft.com/content/7ab6a9ec-1e4e-11e8-aaca-4574d7dabfb6

This might be helpful: https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/files/publications/super-curricular_suggestions.pdf