year 11-12 economics

[bully3000]

hey guys,
was just wondering how much into an economics degree does vce units 1-4 go through?
Is year 11-12 economics equivalent to about the completion of first semester of first year economics?

Or more or less?
How different is it to doing an economics degree at university?


thanks

[sluu001]

Economics at VCE level only provides an introduction to the theory behind the discipline (i.e. How the Demand/Supply curves move; How Unemployment affects Interest Rates/Inflation/Foreign Exchange rates etc.). There is precious little (if any) mathematics contained within the syllabus.

University Economics will cover all of this, plus introduce you to not only why and how these movements occur; but also some basic mathematical/economic mechanisms that allow them to happen. Concepts like Marginal Revenue/Cost; PPF Curves, MPL/MPK, Elasticity of Price/Demand/Supply, Price Theory in a Competitive Market vs a Monopoly (and even perhaps Oligopolies), Game Theory etc.; which are not covered in High School (at least in my time) will be introduced in 1st year.

However, don't be too freaked out about all these fancy words that I managed to sprout out in this post. They are just fancy Economist speak for very basic mathematical concepts. So if you are competent in Mathematics in high school - this stuff will be ridiculously easy to grasp. It is the students who may not have done as well in Maths that seem to struggle some of the topics.

[spectroscopy]

University Economics will cover all of this, plus introduce you to not only why and how these movements occur; but also some basic mathematical/economic mechanisms that allow them to happen. Concepts like Marginal Revenue/Cost; PPF Curves, MPL/MPK, Elasticity of Price/Demand/Supply, Price Theory in a Competitive Market vs a Monopoly (and even perhaps Oligopolies), Game Theory etc.; which are not covered in High School (at least in my time) will be introduced in 1st year.

maybe its just my school (perhaps because select entry), but we are doing PPF curves, elasticity of price/demand/supply (was likE 20 marks on our mid year unit 1 exam LOL), and price theory in competitive markets vs monopolies (and oligopolies, duopolies, monopolistic competition etc), and we briefly touched for a second on game theory

maybe my teacher just likes to go off on tangents



ANYWAY FOR THE OP - ECONOMICS IN VCE IS FUN, and it will get you to think economically (cause and effect sorts of things), good prep for uni i would say apart from the lack of math