Topic: personal statement

Order Description About my family: Hong Kong, Single Parent (Mother), 60% Finance support from Father Major: Art in SMC; Changed Economics in ECC Why change: Becomes a single parent family; used to quit school(work in the gap year between SMC and ECC); lost interest in Art based on the family status Why Economics: Attachment SMC: 2013 Spring ECC: 2014Spring – 2016Spring Internship: Finance department at Wing Dik Engineering Co, LTD. (3 weeks, August 2015, in Guangdong, China) Tin Hang Hui Prof. Amber Gillis Englich-1A 7-21-2015 Why Economics? Poverty, housing, unemployment, financial institution, welfare loss, trade restriction etc. all these social issues are related to economics, what my major is. It is very easy to make use of economic concept to life since economics lives surrounding our daily life. I am going to brief what economics is about, explore some specific topics of economics, and why economics is possible choice to freshmen. I choose economics to be my major because I believe that there is no other subject is such attractive in comparison with economics, so that economics is a desirable subject to incoming freshman definitely. To start with, I have concluded that there are three main concepts of economics, including scarce resources and unlimited wants, macroeconomics and microeconomics, demand and supply. What are scarce resources and unlimited wants? These two concepts are usually putting together. Do you want to have better meal, bigger home, nicer car, more money, and more leisure? Of course! However, those resources are not unlimited no matter how you desire to have. It is the most fundamental problem in economics. Economics examines how we satisfy and manage our unlimited wants due to our scarce resources. Macroeconomics is the study of specific markets, and divisions of the economy. It focuses on some particular issues like consumer behavior, individual labor market. Also, macroeconomics is considered with economic growth, international trade, and fiscal policy, for example how interest rate affects the economic activities. Microeconomics is the study of the whole economy. It focuses on “aggregate” variables, such as aggregate supply, aggregate demand, and inflation. Besides, microeconomics is considered with demand and supply in individual markets, consumer behavior, and labor market, for example, comparing with wage of lawyers and McDonald’s worker, lawyer’s wage is always higher than McDonald’s worker’s because the supply of lawyer is less flexible than McDonald’s worker, and lawyer brings more profit. Last but not least, demand and supply are the most powerful and the most basic amid all economic tools. Realizing demand and supply helps us understanding better in economic analysis. For instance, why do roses cost more on Valentine’s Day than the other days? That is totally related to demand and supply. Since the increasing demand of roses in Valentine’s Day, the roses’ price on the Valentine’s Day will be increased. In my viewpoints, the three concepts are the most important components of economics. As a student who studies economics for a while, I have learnt macroeconomics. I am able to touch with the magic of economics. For me, economics is fantastic and awesome, I can always find out some stimuli through economics. There are wide range issues regarding to macroeconomics, such as GDP (measuring national income), inflation (measuring the cost of living), foreign exchange and trade. Learning never stop for each person, there are lots of knowledge are new for us, exploring more concepts of economics is essential as a student who studies economics. In fact, economics is everywhere. It is easy to observe that there are huge numbers of homeless in the US, and it is one of the most important social issues in the US. According to The 2013 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, there were 610,042 people who were homeless on a given night in January 2013. About 65 percent (394,498 people) were living in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs and 35 percent (215,344 people) were living in unsheltered locations. Why there is so many homeless in United States? Low wages is one of the reasons that result in homeless. Declining wages made housing being unaffordable for many workers. According to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, the lack of affordable housing is a primary origin of homelessness. The occurrence of homeless is related to economics too. To be mentioned, there are many things in our daily life touch upon economics, such as education, housing, healthy, policy, poverty, unemployment, and stock market. According to a news article from Florida Times-Union on 22nd May, 2015, the unemployment rate decreases, as well as the improving economic times. To speak in other words, economic optimism results in dropping of unemployment. Therefore, economics can be explained to lots of social issues. What’s more, inflation is one of the topics into economics. The price of commodities is keeping increase, which is inflation. According to William, inflation is a sustained increase in the economy’s average price level. Also, he noted that a decrease aggregate demand can cause demand-pull inflation. (162) He examined the relationship between demand and supply with inflation, which is influencing our life every day. One more example is that, under a fixed exchange rate, one country may try to hold down the value of currency, so that exports can be cheaper to foreigners and imports will cost more to domestic consumers. It is purpose to increase domestic production and decrease unemployment. (William, 433) It shows that exchange rate tend to influence our purchase activities, we may purchase more domestic produce due to less import products and more domestic products. Why the major of economics is the best possible choice to a freshman? Undoubtedly, economics helps to recognize the life by using economic concept. As I mentioned before, economics can be found out in anywhere. Life is surrounding with economics. Not only some of the social issues, but also job market, and price level, which are unavoidable to touch in everyday. Hotel price is usually different in each seasonal period. For instance in Las Vegas, the most appropriate travelling period is from October to December, thus the price level of hotel in Las Vegas is the most expensive owing to the increasing demand. People can easily to explain what happen in life everyday by using economic concepts if they study in economics. Therefore I truly recommend economics to be a possible choice to study for a freshman. Apart from recognizing the life better, predicting the coming activities in the future is a reason to choose economics being a major. Economic activities influence the future action certainly. If petroleum exporting country stops to export petroleum, the oil price in the US will be increased since the supply of oil decrease. That is one of the typical examples of predicting coming activities through the understanding of economics. According to my personal experience, I recently heard that the oil supply of Iran is resumed; it means that the oil supply is boosted. Therefore, it is an opportunity to travel around. I found out that in most of time, stock market decreases before the decline of economic cycle. Also, the stock market rise again before the economic cycle step in the peak. To speak in other words, development of stock market is significant to predict the coming activities. As a result, studying economics is helpful to predict our future life which is a benefit for freshman. What’s more, solving the problems by using economic concept is one of the reasons of choosing economics as a major. Let us imagine that, if there is one unemployed person is seeking for a job, one of the strategies to receive a new job is to recognize the thriving enterprise of stock market keep raising. Thriving-developed enterprise requires more staffs to run with it. The person is easier to receive a job successfully because of the growing development of that enterprise. That person is trying to solve the unemployed problem by using the knowledge of economics. As a result, adopting measurement by using economic concept is important to solve the problems easily. Last but not least, wide range of job career and satisfied salary are the other reasons to explain why economics is a possible major to incoming freshmen. There are wide range of jobs can be offered to students who study in economics. According to Career Destinations Survey conducted by University of California, Berkeley, there are very long lists of job titles which are suitable for a student who are major in economics, including, analyst consultant, global management trainee, risk and quantitative analysis analyst, portfolio administrator, investment banking analyst, audit associate, financial institutions specialist, program director, product marketing manager, associate sales representative, and human capital analyst. Moreover, graduators studying economics is usually receive higher salary than studying other school or subject’s graduators. According to Career Destinations Survey conducted by University of California, Berkeley, the average salary of economics’ graduators is $63,436, nevertheless, graduator who is major in architecture is $43,400, and the average salary for sociology graduator is $41,600 and $39,933 for English graduator. It shows that studying in economics tends to develop better and potential career path than most of other majors. Also, there are some world leaders studied in economics in their university life, such as three US presidents, Turkey’s first female prime minister, US Supreme Court justices Steven Breyer and Anthony Kennedy, and Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer. Economics being a popular major to world leaders and famous people must be an attractive reason to freshmen to get into the major of economics. To be summarized, there are three main concepts of economics are introduce above, including scarce resources and unlimited wants, macroeconomics and microeconomics, demand and supply. The reasons of recognizing the life by using economic concept, predicting the coming activities in the future, solving the problems by using economic concepts, wide range of job career and satisfied salary draw freshmen’s interests to choose economics as a major in their learning path. “There is no the best, only better.” This is a famous speech from Fred E .Fiedler, who is a popular economist. Economics is the better thing that you are seeking for with no doubt. Work Cited Tejvan Pettinger, “Difference Between Microeconomics and Macroeconomics”, 4 Feb 2013 <http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/6796/economics/difference-between-microeconomics-and-macroeconomics/> Drew Dixon, “Economic Optimism On The First Coast: Unemployment Drops; Consumer Spending Increases”, Florida Times-Union, 22 May 2015. “Career Destinations Survey”, UCB Career Center, 2014. <https://career.berkeley.edu/Survey/2014Majors> “Macroeconomics”, Khan Academy, 1 June 2015. <https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/macroeconomics> Meghan Henry, Dr. Alvaro Cortes, and Sean Morris, “The 2013 Annual Homeless Assessment (AHAR) to Congress”, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2013. <https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/ahar-2013-part1.pdf> William A. McEachern. Macreoeconmics A Contemporary Introduction: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2012.