CAREER OPTIONS FOR ECONOMICS GRADUATES

Dear Jarus, I am a young lady studying Economics in the university. I have no idea of what next to do after my degree…if I decide to go for masters (which is on my mind), I don’t know what course to take and what school to pick; what do you think I should do? Also, as a graduate of Economics with a first class or 2.1, what are my oppourtunities in the real world?(Before and after masters).

Thanks a lot.

Mary

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Dear Mary,

If Masters is what you have in your mind, please go for it, especially, if you are still young and less than 25. If not, I will advise you hit the labour market first so that you will not cut yourself off the under-26 requirement of most companies nowadays.

I cannot prescribe an exact course for you for your Masters degree, but a good number of economics graduates go for Msc Economics or Msc Finance for their second degree. You may want to consider either of those.

As for school, here is my order of preference:

• A decent school in the UK or US if you can afford it or can get scholarship. See here for an article we did on postgraduate scholarship; it may be helpful.
• First Generation Nigerian Universities (OAU, UI, UNILAG, UNN, ABU, UNIBEN)
• Second generation Nigeria Universities (UNILORIN, UDUS, UNIPORT, UNICAL, BUK etc)
• First-Grade Private Universities (Covenant, Babcock, Igbinedion, Madonna etc)

Depending on your resources and other personal factors, you may want to do Msc in any of these schools.

On career opportunities for an economics graduate, here are some notable options:

• Lecturing in a higher institution
• Writing accounting professional exams and becoming an accountant who can work in virtually any company
• Getting job in professional services firms like PwC, KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young etc, for training which can turn you into accountant, auditor, tax practitioner etc
• Investment banking
• Regular banking
• Commercial/Business analysts in different industries
• Management consulting and advisory firms
• Analysts in research institutes/firms

There are more. This is just to give an idea of where economics graduates can fit in.

I wish you all the best.

Jarus

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