The Department of Economics offers students both an excellent introduction to the main areas of economics and the opportunity to tailor their learning experience to a varied range of professional and educational opportunities upon graduation. Thanks to our range of degree programs, and to the wide variety of elective courses that students can choose from within each program, our majors acquire the requisite knowledge and analytical skills for careers in the public and private sectors, as well as for pursuing graduate studies in economics, law, business administration, public policy, and other social sciences.
While our degree programs emphasize academic coursework, the department considers the acquisition of professional experiences through internships to be an important component of every student’s college life. To further this goal, we encourage and help students seek internship opportunities in business firms, government agencies, and nonprofit institutions. Many of our students have found internships to be a stepping stone for a full-time job with the same employer, or in the same area of business or government. For other students, internships have been an opportunity to evaluate prospective professional careers, to acquire generic job-related skills, and to explore connections between their academic learning and specific workplaces.
Our students routinely secure internships at business firms, law firms, local and state governments, and nonprofit organizations. Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Arrow Electronics, Stifel Nicolaus & Co., the NPD Group, Nassau County Police Department, Internal Revenue Service, Executive Chamber of the State of New York, Judicial Branch of the State of Connecticut, and UCLA Medical Center's Genetics Research Laboratory are among the employers where our students have served as interns during the last few semesters. And after serving internships, our alumni have gone onto graduate studies at institutions such as Georgetown University, and to careers in business at places such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
How to Obtain an Internship
The department recognizes the value of a good internship experience on a student’s overall learning. A good internship provides a student with the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills specific to a particular job or to the kinds of activities performed by the organization offering the internship. It can also serve as an opportunity for students to evaluate how the knowledge acquired in class can support their professional development and enrich their appreciation for the tasks assigned to them as interns, whether in a business firm or in a government office, or in another kind of organization. Students majoring in economics can pursue academic credits for their internship-based learning experiences — subject to approval by the department chair — by registering for the course ECO 155, Economics Internship. Students who intend to register for this course are expected to have completed the introductory classes in economics (ECO 1 and ECO 2) and to have a GPA of 3.0 or better, both overall and in Economics.
An internship may be eligible for academic credit if it involves training for a position in which a college degree would be necessary for full-time employment and in which a major in Economics would be considered beneficial. Students whose internship has been approved by the department chair can receive between 1 and 4 semester hours of academic credit, depending on the type of work and the number of hours worked at the internship site. In general, students can expect to receive 1 credit per 32 hours worked. The student’s grade in the course is based on both the work done on-site and the academic work carried out under faculty supervision. In general, students are expected to prepare weekly entries for a journal or blog, meet with their supervisors, and write a short term paper (7-10 pages per credit hour) about their internship experience and the role that their knowledge of economics played in the work assigned to them.
For more information about obtaining an internship, contact Department Chair Dr. Constantine Alexandrakis at 516-463-5593 or via email.