Using Your First Year of Economics Wisely...

Firstly, feel free to write off any of the drivel I spurt out here as rubbish - this will be coming from my own personal experiences, and I know everyone is different. So today I'm going to try and give some advice into how to spend your first year studying economics at university to set yourself up for the future. I started my first year fairly clueless about how to move forward and help myself pursue a career in finance - so I contacted a third year friend who has tied down a graduate job at an investment bank. I took that advice on board and used it to steer me in the correct direction. I feel if I had known what I do now before even starting my degree I'd be better placed, but that's life and the benefit of hindsight. I'm going to go through three main points: studying, interning and 'other stuff'.

So, firstly, the studying. A lot of the people you meet at university will tell you "it's only first year, it doesn't count". Ok, yes, that is partly true. At most universities what you achieve in your first year has no effect on your final degree classification. Most will have it in their heads that they only need to achieve the bare minimum to pass, 40%, anymore would be wasted efforts. I disagree totally with this. When you get into your second year and things get serious, the only thing anyone has to go on regarding your academic ability is your first year grade. So they may see a 42% average and get the wrong impression, you could be the smartest guy alive. However, try hard in your first year and achieving a good grade isn't that difficult. Put the effort in and reap the rewards. A solid 2:1 in your first year is a great way to start your degree, it shuts no doors in your face - and in fact opens a lot. My first piece of advice for your first year studying economics would be to take it seriously, aim for a decent grade.

My second point is interning. This is the information I could really have used before I started my degree - but I was lazy and didn't put the effort into researching. My fault entirely. The bottom line is, if you want to enter the finance sector after completing your degree you need some experience under your belt. The best way to get this experience is to intern. Internships are commonly done during the Summer of your penultimate year, but you can get a head start. Many firms offer what is known as a 'Spring Week' during first year. This is essentially, as the name suggests, a week during Spring spent at the firm learning the ropes and getting an insight into the operations undertaken there. It can lead to a fast track to a second year Summer internship, which is fantastic. These aren't a necessity though, I never got a Spring week because I started applying too late, but they sure will help. Applying early is my advice. Applications for some firms can open as early as August, and as they recruit on a rolling basis getting in there early is the best bet. I applied in late December/early January and didn't even get a look in.

My third point is do 'stuff'. Ambiguous, I know, but you need to get out there and do as much as you can in the first year. Join societies, go to events, network.. everything will help. Even if it doesn't seem like its helping, it isn't doing any harm. The likelihood is that your CV will be fairly dull before going to university, you need to spend first year sprucing it up - doing things that show you'd be a great catch for some firm in the future. Get on committees for societies, volunteer, these sort of things all make your CV look good. And it needs to. Talk to people, get numbers and e-mail addresses. Having a large network of people you can talk to is vital - you'll hear it a lot but it's definitely 'who you know' that gets you places nowadays. You'll be surprised how much you can benefit from befriending and staying in contact with just a few people. So, my third tip for first year is to build up the CV fodder.

I hope my advice is helpful to some, if not then I apologise for taking up your time and I'll ask you nicely to bugger off my blog. If you want to ask any questions about being a first year economics student with a goal of the finance career then feel free, I'll be happy to answer. Best of luck. 

Economics at the University of Birmingham

My first year at the University of Birmingham came to an end last Friday. I finished my last exam at half past 11 and now I have an overwhelming feeling of freedom. Too much so, perhaps. I have nothing to do, hence why I'm here. I wanted to give my opinion on the University of Birmingham, and the economics course they offer. I'm going to try to be honest, but of course I have the potential to be bias so feel free to ignore every word I say. There will be a few words of advice towards the end.

I'll start by saying that I've loved my first year at University. It's been great. I've enjoyed pretty much all of it - but it did fly by, unfortunately. It seems only yesterday I was moving my stuff in and saying goodbye to friends from home. If I had to quantify my first year studying economics at the University of Birmingham it would be a solid 8 out of 10 (I believe that nothing is perfect, so an 8 is pretty damn good coming from me).

'Old Joe'

As far as the University as a whole goes, there are plenty of positives. The campus is talked about a lot - it's a beautiful campus, centring around the main attraction 'Old Joe', and it doesn't get that reputation for no reason. It even looks good in the rain. It almost makes you want to walk on to campus for your 9 o'clock lecture! Understandably, having a nice environment around you for your 3 years+ of studying is important - it really does help. The transport links are also a massive benefit. Having an on-campus train station that can take you to Birmingham New Street in 10 minutes is invaluable. It makes the trip home/back to university for holidays so much easier and less stressful, as well as giving you easy access to a great city in your free time. I'd recommend getting a 16-25 railcard if you plan on using the station a lot, the railcard makes a return journey into New Street only £1.40 and you can also use it to get a third off trains home. Perfect. Amenities on campus are also pretty awesome. I love my coffee, so being able to pick up a Starbucks or a Costa in the middle of campus is great. The queues aren't even that big as you might expect, and it's normal pricing. There's also the farmers market for all of your fresh fruit and vegetables which is a neat touch.

The walk to campus during the snow

Everything of course isn't perfect, there are some downsides which I'll even admit to. Firstly, although this depends on what sort of person you are, the accommodation leaves a fair bit to be desired. Although I can only speak for the halls I live in, I assume it's a similar story for the others. For what you're paying you may expect a lot more. I've paid over £4,000 a year for my room and with that I get a flat with one shower, two toilets and a kitchen that I'm sharing with 4 others. The rooms are averagely sized. The biggest problem is from above. The management seem very unwilling to put any effort into helping out students. I met with my halls manager twice about issues in my flat that were affecting me and my flatmate and she virtually laughed us out the door - not ideal, but if you have thick skin you probably won't meet many problems. The maintenance service is also pretty slow - expect at least a 2 day delay when it comes to fixing broken things in your flat. We had to cook for a week using torchlight because our kitchen light broke and essentially bath in the shower because of a blocked drain. Another slight issue is location for decent food shopping. If you're a food delivery sort of person then ignore this, but if you're like me and you actually like going to the shop and picking out your own things then there's a slight problem. You get an Aldi, a Sainsbury's, a Tesco and a Morrisons nearby, but all are about a twenty minute walk. This of course limits the amount of stuff you can actually buy to the amount you can carry in bags, meaning you may have to go a few times a week - which can be a bit of a pain.

The course itself was very good. I went with straight economics, but there was plenty of scope to vary that a bit - maybe put in a language, or go down a more mathematical route. I liked the fact I could cater my degree to my own preferences, despite still sticking with pure economics. There's a good balance of modules in first year: a few maths-y ones, some pure economics and then more applied and specific modules which give you a good introduction to the whole subject and assist you when it comes to picking modules in the second year. On that note, for the second year you get to choose 6 out of the 12 modules you will study - so there is a lot of freedom for you to make your degree as appropriate to you and your aspirations as possible. The teaching quality is as good as I expected - I do feel I've learnt a lot in this first year, despite it of course not really counting for anything. The office hours of lecturers are always available if you're having any issues with the work and they're more than happy to help you over e-mail in the hours when their office isn't open. One of the big debates nowadays is how the university are spending our £9000 tuition fees - but I think the economics department is doing it well. We get all lecture slides printed out for us, which is good when it comes to note-taking and the revision period. We also get a personal tutor that we can see with any issues and an economics office staffed with friendly people who are always willing to help. I'd say that money was well spent relative to other departments in the university.  

One little fault I had with the course was that one of the modules was made up of 50% business studies. I mean, no disrespect to business studies students, but that wasn't really the sort of stuff I wanted to be learning on my economics degree. It's not very relevant to me and thus I found it frustrating. Especially when it came to revising for the exam, I couldn't focus or concentrate on learning the material because it just didn't interest me. Although the boundaries between economics and business studies can be blurred at times, this module definitely took a step over which I wasn't best pleased with. My second problem is the library. This is probably an issue in all other universities at exam time, but I noticed it was particularly difficult to even get a space during April and May, let alone get a computer. The solution would be to get up at 8 am and get in there before the crowd, but that isn't always ideal. I toyed with taking my laptop down there to use, but found the Wi-Fi to be infuriatingly unreliable and I had to just stay at my flat to revise. There could be an improvement in this area. However, the next big investment from the university is a re-housing of the library so that could solve the issues.

My 'average' sized bedroom

I'd like to conclude by saying that Birmingham is a great place to study. It's an awesome city, everything you need is right on your doorstep and the University is fantastic. It's highly rated and will take you places in life. I do have some tips for you, though. First, try hard in your first year. Many people will tell you that the first year is a doss and 40% is all you need to continue to second year. Yes, that's true, but 40% doesn't look great on the CV, and if you have real aspiration you're going to want to be doing internships during the Summer of second year. A 2:1 minimum in first year is needed to do these internships, and that will take some commitment and some work. My second piece of advice is to dive in to everything. So many opportunities will present themselves in such a short space of time. Try as much as you can and get involved in everything that takes your fancy. If it means little sleep, so be it - you won't look back and remember the nights where you got plenty of sleep. "C.V, C.V, C.V" will be hammered into you for the first few weeks, and the only way to make yours look good is to do stuff, get involved and experience things. Good luck in your ventures, and I'll potentially see you at Birmingham next year. Laters.

Sam.