Economics and Management Subject Guide📈
- anjalidepala
- Feb 8, 2021
- 7 min read
Hello there, we’re Shariz & Felix, a couple of 2nd year E&M-ers at Teddy Hall! This subject guide provides information on what studying Economics & Management at Oxford is like, as well as personal statement tips and Oxford Interview advice. These topics are also covered in a Q&A video featuring slightly-younger Shariz on Teddy Hall’s YouTube channel, so give that a watch, too!
What does a typical day studying Economics & Management at Teddy Hall look like?
Economics and Management has more typical weeks than typical days, with the days within each week varying quite a bit but each week as a whole looking quite similar! I guess a typical day tends to have some lecture time and some self-study time in the library punctuated by non-degree things like socialising, meals, sport, and etc.
Across each week there are usually around 4 – 5 lectures. Economics lectures take place in Exam Schools, just across the High street from Teddy Hall which is pretty ideal (one of us was proud of managing a 60 second time from bed to lecture). Management lectures typically take place at the Saïd Business School (SBS) which is a 15min walk from Teddy Hall (or 3-minute cycle if the traffic light gods are feeling kind). First year students take Introductory Economics, General Management, and Financial Management, with the lectures split across the first two terms. There don’t tend to be any lecture courses in the summer term so you can relax a bit more and revise for exams at the end of term.
Most E&Mers have 2 tutorials per week throughout their degree. Tutorials are typically groups of 2 to 3 students with a tutor for at least an hour. In first year, tutorials are organised by the college and are given for Introductory Economics and General Management. Financial Management is taught in faculty-organised classes of 10 or so students at the SBS, which means first years actually have 3 weekly commitments! Tutorials usually involve submitting a problem sheet or essay for each one and discussion around that week’s topic. Given their small size, discussion is engaging and can be very tailored to what you want to know. The tutors are Teddy Hall really are fantastic and supportive. They get to really know you as an individual, which helps them not only support your learning but also wider university life.
Across second and third year we get to pick which modules we do from a wide selection across the two disciplines, taking 8 in total. We typically take 2 per term (hence why most of us have 2 tutorials per week) which gets us through all 8 by the middle of third year, leaving lots of time in the final year for consolidation and revision. That being said, the degree is super flexible and there are plenty of examples of people organising their modules in different ways! Where modules can’t be taught by tutors in Teddy or for which there are specialists elsewhere, the relevant faculty organises tutorials with tutors from other colleges. This is very common in the last two years, particularly for the very varied management options.
Once through a given day’s work, there tends to be a fair bit of time in the evenings to have dinner in college, catch up on some work or reading, or relax in the bar/JCR (the latter of which – the Junior Common Room –has a free hot drinks machine featuring chocomilk, the college’s social liquour). If you want to get involved in other societies, there’s lots of time for training, rehearsals, committee meetings or hearing guest speakers in the evenings and weekends. Both of us have done lots of extra-curricular stuff both in college and across the wider Uni!
Why do you love studying Economics & Management at Teddy Hall?
Everyone’s so friendly so supportive! If you’re struggling with a particular topic, the other Economics students are always there to help, and not just the ones in your year, older years are always happy to help younger years who are finding it a bit tough. The E&M group at Teddy also tend to be a very sociable bunch, so there’s loads of opportunities for social events like the E&M subject dinner (Pictured below, with Shariz forced off the high table platform to make him equal height to Felix). Teddy Hall’s student economics society is also a great excuse to passionately discuss economics (i.e. have a drink!) with E&Mers and PPEists from all years in the college. You also spend a lot of time at the business school which has a brilliant library, gardens, canteen with excellent food, and a common room with free coffee! It’s a lovely place to work or rewind after a lecture or tutorial with the other E&M stout dents from across different colleges. The business school’s snazzy facilities, coupled with the cosy size of the E&M cohort and how often you end up there, means the course really fosters getting to know peers from other colleges in a way that some other subjects are envious of.
The tutors at Teddy are also brilliant. Not only are they excellent at teaching but they also want to make sure you’re getting on alright and are more than happy to support you if you’re struggling or a bit overwhelmed one week.
Personal Statement
Oxford recommend that personal statements are about 90% academic content, and 10% extra-curricular. The Academic content isn’t meant to be a university level essay! It’s just about you conveying why you’re interested in Economics & Management. If you can evidence that you’ve gone beyond what you learn in class, whether that’s reading books, going to talks, or listening to podcasts, that’s what the tutors are really
interested in. If you can offer your own opinion on what you read in a book, or what you went on to read as a result, that’s even better! This 90/10 split doesn’t mean that extra-curricular doesn’t matter. If you’ve got some awesome extra-curricular like being really good at a sport, being in drama productions, playing an instrument, or being head boy/girl, do mention it. Try to link it to why it would help you study at Oxford, so that could be communication and interpersonal skills or time management and organisation.
Writing a personal statement can be really tough, especially given how few words you have. Some tips are:
Make sure you’ve read every article/book etc. on your personal statement. If you get an interview Question on your personal statement, it’s likely designed as a question to settle you in so don’t make it more difficult for yourself by getting caught out
Remember to talk about management too! It’s entirely normal not to really know what management is, but showing you’ve done some reading about is key. Try and talk about an aspect of a book, or recent management news article that really interests you!
Below are some materials we’ve used and recommend.
Reading Books:
The Undercover Economist – Tim Harford
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty - Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
Doughnut Economics – Kate Raworth
Thinking: Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Globalization and Its Discontents – Joseph E. Stiglitz
Management: A Very Short Introduction – John Hendry
Listening to Podcasts:
Freakonomics Radio
Economist Radio
BBC World Business Report
Watching Videos/Online lectures: · Ted Talks – 10-15min talks on a massive range of topics
The Economist Films
MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are free online courses available for anyone to enroll):
(Any of them really)
Reading News and Research articles:
The Economist – good for economics news articles
The Financial Times – good for economics and finance news articles
Harvard Business Review – good for accessible management topics
TSA (Thinking Skills Assessment) – Entrance Exam:
The TSA is the entrance test used for E&M at Oxford. It’s split into two parts, a 90-minute multiple choice section (50 Qs) and a 30-minute essay (you get a choice of 4 or 5 questions and answer 1). The multiple-choice questions are either problem solving (generally involving basic maths) or logical (evaluating arguments). All the past papers are available online, so I used them to prepare as the questions take a little bit of getting used to and the test is very time pressured. The essay is just to see how you write, so there’s no expectation that
you’ll have knowledge of the topics they’ll ask about. There tends to be one question that is more geared towards economics but you by no means have to answer this one if there is a different question you find more interesting. Shariz talks about how he prepared for the TSA as one of the topics in that Q&A video we mentioned.
Interviews:
Not all colleges do the same as Teddy Hall but at Teddy you would normally have one economics interview, and one more management one. In either case, the interviews are often like mini-tutorials, designed to see how you engage with a problem in that style of learning environment. They are likely to be much more conversational and bidirectional than, say, a job interview, looking at how you answer things rather than just what your answer is.
The Economics one doesn’t test your knowledge of A-Level Economics as the only requirement to study E&M is A-Level Maths (or equivalent). It is always useful to have a simple understanding of the core concepts like supply and demand though! The Economics interview tends to be more maths based, where the tutors will give you a few maths problems – often with an economic context – for you to solve. You aren’t expected to know immediately how to answer the question, so don’t be afraid to take some time to think or ask for clarification! I found it helpful to talk through the problem out loud so the tutors could see my thought process. This made it easier for me to work through the problem but also for the tutors to point me in the right direction if was going wrong.
For the management interview you might be given an extract to read. This then forms the basis of the interview, but the interview ends up being more like a conversation with the tutors about the parts of the extract that you found most interesting.
We hope this guide helps answer at least some of the questions you may have floating around your mind about Economics and Management. Best of luck with your application, we can’t wait to have you here at the Hall!
Check out the Q&A below:
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