Striving to involve undergraduates in economic research at Wellesley College

ABSTRACT

One of the key advantages of attending a small liberal arts college is the opportunity to engage in research; at research universities, these opportunities are often given to graduate students. Further, smaller class sizes make it possible to personalize instruction to showcase how the tools students learn in their courses are used to answer questions of practical and social relevance. At Wellesley, consuming and producing research is embedded in the curriculum for every student. Supplementary programs such as summer research opportunities, honors theses, and fellowships allow students who develop serious interest in research to hone their technical skills and to work with faculty on peer-reviewed publications. This experience helps students decide whether or not to pursue a PhD, and can help in the application process.

KEYWORDS:

• Senior thesis
• summer programs
• undergraduate research

JEL CODES:

• A11
• A22

Notes

1. The funding for this program was made possible through generous funding from Barbara Ruhlman.

2. Made possible by a generous gift from former Wellesley Economics Department faculty member, Marshall Goldman.

3. Made possible by a generous gift from Stanford Calderwood.

4. Thanks to a generous gift to the College from Barbara Ruhlman.

5. Prizes are available through generous gifts from Peggy Howard's parents in her honor, from friends of Nathalie Bolton in her honor, and Delores Clay in honor of her professor, Joseph Lambie.

6. Using the metric to quantify how economics majors are distributed across racial/ethnic/national origin lines in the graduating classes since the year 2000, we calculate values of 0.886 for African-Americans, 0.871 for Latina students, 2.594 for Asian American students, and 3.988 for foreign students. This implies that African-American and Latina students are about 10 percent less likely to major in economics, but Asian-American students are two and a half times as likely, and foreign students four times as likely, to major in economics than are white students.