Student life is made up of so many things – but in between the fun, there’s always time for study. Classes and lectures are where you’ll learn and grow, so it matters that your course offers you the very best. We chatted with economics student Kajal to see what she thinks about what she’s learning at Queen Mary.
There’s a lot to enjoy! The teaching staff – the lecturers and the teaching assistants – are all so helpful and really care about your success. You can choose modules and personalise the course by focusing on different study areas, which meant I could focus in my third year on what I really enjoyed. It’s how I found my passion for labour economics and econometrics.
The whole School of Economics and Finance is a great place to get involved, and it’s really shaped my experience
I’ve been in photo shoots, PASS mentoring, student ambassador schemes, QMSU societies, even study abroad programmes – and there’s still so much more.
Oh, that’s easy. Hands down, labour economics. It’s a third year module. Actually, when I chose it I didn’t even know what it was, but wanted to take a chance. I loved how it was about life – how people are matched to jobs, the returns to education, why we go to school, decisions about job switching, the dynamics of the labour force. All just really interesting stuff. The lecturer was really inspiring, too. She made it like a story about life. After studying all that I went on to do a summer research internship in Madrid working as a researcher on a labour economics project. I got to apply my skills and theory and see how it all works in practice. Everything started there – after that course I took labour economics as part of my master’s degree, and even my thesis was on a labour topic.
Each year was different. My first year gave me a good foundation. The principles of economics module gives a re-run of A level economics and then goes beyond. MMEB taught me how maths is applied, and maths later became an integral part of the course (even more so at masters level). Second year allowed me to explore economics in greater depth, I also found I like microeconomics over macroeconomics. I learnt that finance is not for me, and that’s okay. Second year’s when you get a taste of econometrics, which is great but a little scary. Big data is something I work with everyday in my consulting role, analysing prices on commodity markets using a lot of data. Econometrics taught me ways to interpret and model data.
By third year I knew what I liked: microeconomics and econometrics. I took advanced modules in both and enjoyed every second. There’s also a module in corporate strategy which is useful if you go into business or consulting. I use it as it taught me how to evaluate competitive landscapes, do cost analysis and understand market reports – things which I look at every day.
Different modules worked for different career paths. Hands on modules, like corporate strategy or applied econometrics, are very reflective of what you see in day to day consulting work. The more theoretical modules – things like advanced micro or some topics in econometrics – focus on theory and maths, which is what you’ll need for further study. They’re a good base. I took a mixture of both so I could experience both sides.
Elective modules are some of the best. Students choose to be there so are more enthusiastic and focused as a group. QMUL offers a wide choice, which let me pick and mix and find my passions. Without the choice this would not have been possible. Because there’s so many you can even take some modules by chance and end up loving them – like I did with labour. There’s also modules to help you prepare for the professional world – corporate strategy, for example. We did business presentations and used real world case studies. It’s a very ‘get you ready for work’ module.