Alumni Outcomes

Study Economics. Do Anything.

What can I do with an Economics major?

Our recent graduates receive excellent job placements in a wide range of fields including:

  • Consulting
  • Analytics
  • Marketing
  • Banking
  • Communications
  • Sports
  • Retail
  • Insurance
  • Technology

Many also pursue graduate school in the humanities and sciences, or full-time service work for a year or more, seeking to make a difference in the world by helping others.

Skills you'll learn

  • Critical thinking and analytical reasoning 
  • Data driven problem solving
  • Ability to think like an economist and apply these tools to real world problems 
  • Econometric theory and applications
  • Ability to articulate complex thoughts and theories 
  • Effective oral communication 
  • Strong writing 
  • Team work
  • Ethical judgment and decision making
  • Ability to analyze and solve problems with people from different backgrounds

 

Greg Duffy '15

Senior business strategy and operations analyst, Vevo

“If you want to better understand the world around you, Economics is a great major. You can tailor it to almost any interest you have. From a statistical and data perspective, economics has almost endless applications," says Greg Duffy, an economics and Spanish major. “You realize you have all the necessary tools to answer some really complex questions that are in political debates, that policymakers deal with. There are empirical answers to a lot of issues, given the right tools.”

  • Greg Duffy '15

    Senior business strategy and operations analyst, Vevo

    “If you want to better understand the world around you, Economics is a great major. You can tailor it to almost any interest you have. From a statistical and data perspective, economics has almost endless applications," says Greg Duffy, an economics and Spanish major. “You realize you have all the necessary tools to answer some really complex questions that are in political debates, that policymakers deal with. There are empirical answers to a lot of issues, given the right tools.”

  • Bill Kennedy '90

    Portfolio Manager - Fidelity Investments, London

    "I was very interested in learning about international history in global markets and how they work together. With my economics degree, I got all of that, says Bill Kennedy, an economics major. "To better appreciate something that's going to grow over three to five years you really need to use a lot of tools that you learn in Arts and Letters. A lot of those skills in asking questions and asking them the right way come directly from my Arts and Letters background."

  • Bryan Samuels '89

    Executive Director - Chapin Hall Center for Children, University of Chicago

    "A big part of undergraduate for me was trying to find a purpose," says Bryan Samuels, an economics major. "It was really through the time that I spent at Notre Dame that I found a purpose. The liberal arts education makes you think about the big world, right? Not just the one that you came from, but this larger world and it challenges you to look at it from different perspectives. So it has the power of not only making the world bigger but helping you understand the behavior of others and I think, in the end, gives you a level of empathy and intellectual honesty that you really can't find anywhere else."

  • Caroline Genco ‘17

    Consultant, Deloitte Consulting in Washington, DC

    “As a dual major in Economics and Design, I have fond memories of running from my Financial Econ seminar to evening design studio across campus. Though I still get funny looks from my Deloitte colleagues when sharing these were my undergraduate majors, it has become even clearer to me how the skills I developed in these departments are directly applicable to the work I do today. As consultants, we always strive to think critically, creatively, and empathetically about our clients’ toughest challenges. This enables us to develop and test hypotheses that drive actionable change across all levels of an organization. In these ways, and many others, I have been able to directly apply my Economics degree, and my College of Arts and Letters education more broadly, to my professional experience with clients ranging from privately owned retailers to large-scale government agencies.”

  • Catherine Etchart '19

    Business Analyst

    "Entering college, I wanted my field of study to enable me to develop a quantitative and qualitative toolkit to aid in understanding the driving forces behind human behavior, social impact, and policy decisions. Studying Economics empowered me to approach new kinds of problems with a logical framework, a desire to dig deeper into the “why?”, and provided me with the opportunity to apply my major to my passion for social impact through research with LEO and writing a senior thesis on the performance of socially responsible mutual funds. As a consultant, I use the skills I learned in the Economics major every day to approach complex client challenges with a logical methodology, data-driven decision-making, and an ability to effectively communicate results to a variety of audiences."    

99% of recent Notre Dame Economics majors found full-time employment, enrolled in graduate school, entered service programs, joined the military, or launched independent projects within six months of graduation.

74% find full-time jobs

  • Actuarial assistant, Liberty Mutual Insurance
  • Art associate, Park West Gallery
  • Capabilities development specialist, U.S. Department of Defense
  • Case manager, Office of U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly
  • Civil engineering associate, Troyer Group
  • Claims associate, Chubb Insurance
  • Consultant, Pariveda Solutions
  • Data scientist, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
  • Developer, Sigora International
  • Discretionary trader, Gelber Group
  • Fellow, Venture for America
  • Finance project coordinator, Maga Design
  • Financial advisor, Edward Jones
  • Grant manager, Wolohan Family Foundation
  • Investment banker, Citi
  • Legal assistant, Moort-Faust Injury Law Group
  • Loan specialist, US Small Business Administration
  • Machine learning engineer, Perceptive Automata
  • Management consultant, Booz Allen Hamilton
  • Marketing coordinator, NBCUniversal
  • News videographer, Charter Communications
  • Paralegal specialist, U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division
  • Quality assurance, Epic
  • Research assistant, The Urban Institute
  • Risk advisory associate, Grant Thorton
  • Software developer, Microsoft
  • Technology risk consultant, Deloitte
  • Trader trainee, Louis Dreyfus Co.
  • Transfer pricing associate, PwC
  • Underwriter, Vanliner Insurance
  • Wealth management analyst, JP Morgan

15% go to graduate or professional school

  • Accountancy: Villanova University
  • Actuarial science: Columbia University
  • Applied economics: University of California at Los Angeles
  • Business administration: Lewis University
  • Business analytics: University of British Columbia
  • Computer science: Carnegie Mellon University
  • Costume design: San Diego State University
  • Economics: Duke University, Yale University
  • Education: Columbia University, Stanford University
  • Finance: Columbia University, Washington University in St. Louis
  • Interreligious studies: Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas
  • Irish and Irish American studies: New York University
  • Law: Harvard University
  • Medicine: Georgetown University
  • Public policy: Harvard University
  • Quantitative psychology: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Social work: University of Southern California
  • Sociology: Virginia Tech

5% enter service programs

  • Alliance for Catholic Education, Los Angeles, California
  • Augustinian Volunteers, Chulucanas, Peru
  • Bon Secours Volunteer Ministry, Baltimore, Maryland
  • Center for the Homeless, South Bend, Indiana
  • Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Glastonbury, Connecticut
  • Holy Family Service Corps, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  • L'Arche, Tacoma, Washington
  • Open Arms Home for Children, Komga, South Africa
  • SAGA, Chicago, Illinois
  • Saint John Vianney School, Rancho Cordova, California
  • Teach for America, Tulsa, Oklahoma

2% join the miliary

3% launch independent projects

Note: Outcomes data comes from First Destination reports, a survey of recent graduates conducted by the Notre Dame Center for Career Development and Office of Strategic Planning and Institutional Research. Status is known for more than 90% of each graduating class. 

Further Reading

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