{"id":5263,"date":"2019-05-06T11:22:11","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T15:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/?p=5263"},"modified":"2019-11-22T10:42:26","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T15:42:26","slug":"switching-it-up-paige-carmichael-20-on-why-she-wants-to-pursue-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/news\/switching-it-up-paige-carmichael-20-on-why-she-wants-to-pursue-economics\/","title":{"rendered":"Switching It Up: Paige Carmichael \u201820, on Why She Chose Economics"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to a 2017 study done by the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 33% of undergraduate students will change their major within three years. As it turns out, Paige Carmichael of Warwick, Rhode Island, just so happens to fall under that category. The first in her family to go to college, Carmichael chose URI for multiple reasons. \u201cI wanted to stay close to my family,\u201d she states, \u201cI really liked the Engineering program, too, and I always liked URI as a school, so it wasn\u2019t like I was settling.\u201d With all that in mind, Carmichael enrolled her freshman year as a member of URI\u2019s College of Engineering, though whether or not that decision would stick was a question in and of itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

As anyone who\u2019s changed majors knows, all it takes is one moment to inspire you to make the switch. For some it\u2019s a class; for some, a conversation; and, for others, it\u2019s a professor. For Carmichael it happened to be all three. While attending Professor Smita Ramnarain\u2019s course on microeconomics her freshman year, Carmichael noticed a change within herself. She recalls one class moment in particular that truly inspired her: \u201cProfessor Ramnarain was super informative and really helpful outside of class, and one day she pulled me aside after class let out. She asked me if I\u2019d ever thought about majoring in Economics. It seemed small, but having a teacher come up and ask me really mattered.\u201d Ramnarain took Carmichael under her wing, and Carmichael\u2019s newfound interest in Economics resulted in her enrolling in ECN 202: Macroeconomics<\/em>, the follow-up to ECN 201. After that, she knew she had to make the switch, doing so her sophomore year. \u201cJust taking those two classes felt like I was getting something I was missing,\u201d Carmichael states, \u201cThe Engineering classes felt very cut and dry to me, which works for some people, but it wasn\u2019t what I was looking for in a degree.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Come her commencement in May 2020, Carmichael looks forward to receiving a B.S. in Economic Theory & Methods with a possible Math minor. She will also be graduating with Honors. As for the future, Carmichael aspires to follow in the footsteps of her mentor Smita Ramnarain as well as Professor Ramnarain\u2019s mentor Nancy Folbre, a renowned economist and Professor Emerita from UMass Amherst who Carmichael got to meet at the Fall 2018 Honors Colloquium. Carmichael looks forward to attending graduate school in hopes of becoming a professor and researcher of political or feminist economics. Drawing on her own personal experience, Carmichael has this to say for advice: \u201cFind a mentor in whatever field you\u2019re going into. And be open to switching your major. It\u2019s really scary and kind of a leap of faith, but it\u2019s okay to do it and it can still work out for the better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to a 2017 study done by the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 33% of undergraduate students will change their major within three years. As it turns out, Paige Carmichael of Warwick, Rhode Island, just so happens to fall under that category. The first in her family to go to college, Carmichael chose URI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1089,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-5263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-economics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1089"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5263"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5348,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5263\/revisions\/5348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}