Labor Market Issues

Whitney M.

January 24, 2010 - 6:45 PM

As a journalism student, I never really thought that I would like economics. I am more of a word person, a social media person, grammarian, et cetera.

But as a requirement in the journalism school, two courses of economics are required for graduation. So I took what the econ department likes to call "Econ for Journalists" Econ 101, I realized that it wasn't nearly as hard to comprehend as I had anticipated (keeping in mind that this is the easiest econ course known to man).

Because the concepts interested me, I continued to seek courses that were economic in nature. First, I took communication economics (which is a more media-oriented econ for journalists-with fewer graphs). I loved it. I sat in the front row and got a lot of satisfaction from understanding the course material.

Then I took Consumer Culture, which included several weeks of information about economic systems and how they work with advertising and society.

After three terms of familiarity with economic concepts, I decided to take an upper-division economics course:

Econ 350 Labor Market Issues.

The teacher of this course was my Graduate Teaching Fellow for my "Econ for Journalists" course, so I knew him through office hours and participating in class.

Now, even though I have to get up and go to class at 8:30 (which is still dark in the eyes of most college students), I can't wait to get to my economics class. Most of the students in the class are actually economics majors, but I am not intimidated. I do my homework and attend every class, and that has always served me well in my college classes-no matter the subject.

I never thought I would find it interesting, but economics has become one of my favorite subjects at the University of Oregon.