At CORE Econ, a key part of our mission is to make economics teaching as relevant as possible to today’s economics. Contributions from our community are vital to our success. We’ve been lucky enough to work with some fantastic undergraduate economics interns from UCL, who have been invaluable in helping us refine our offerings.
We caught up with two of our recent interns, Emily Glezer and Emma Huang, to find out more about their contributions to CORE Econ’s projects. Amongst other projects, Emily and Emma made notable contributions to The Economy 2.0 and Understanding our Economy (forthcoming).
We spoke about what attracted them to intern with CORE and what they got out of the experience.
Where did you grow up?
Emma: I grew up in Beijing and Hong Kong.
Emily: I grew up in Bangkok, but spent a large part of my childhood in Shanghai, I’ve always been surrounded by different cultures.
What was your experience of being a student in London?
Emma: Coming to London for university has been a great experience. I’ve really enjoyed the city and the chance to meet people from diverse cultures and backgrounds.
Emily: Moving to London for university was very exciting. I really enjoyed the vibrant academic and social environment and loved how intellectually stimulating and diverse UCL was. It took some adjusting to the cultural differences, but looking back, I am very grateful to have moved to London and hope to live there afterwards.
Why did you want to contribute to CORE?
Emily: I wanted to gain research experience and build a relationship within the department. Interning was an opportunity to get to know the economics department and get some more real-world experience, which made my degree more engaging. The CORE project was interesting to me as it has a more modern approach to economics, which we don’t often see.
Emma: I saw this as a great opportunity to contribute to the organisation behind our textbook, while also building on my economics knowledge and gaining valuable internship experience. Once I began the internship, I found the tasks both engaging and rewarding, which motivated me to continue working with CORE.
What did being an intern for CORE involve?
Emily: The Economy 2.0 and Understanding our Economy were the two main projects I worked on. I helped with writing and answering exercises and multiple-choice questions. A lot of it was answering the questions and writing my own questions to be used for the textbooks.
Emma: The majority of my work has been writing and checking multiple-choice questions for The Economy 2.0. As well as looking at the current multiple-choice questions and checking them from a student’s perspective, looking for problems with the questions. Working on Understanding Our Economy, also included developing exercises as well as multiple-choice questions. There’s a variety of tasks I did, such as redrawing figures, finding source images, formatting teaching slides. It’s really a mixture of tasks.
Did you work draw on your experiences as a student? Did it help with your studies?
Emily: Yes, in the first year, we studied CORE’s The Economy. The Economy uses models that we also studied in both the second and third year at UCL. So, my undergraduate degree was quite handy for actually writing the questions.
Understanding Our Economy is designed for students in the US whose level of economics education might be a bit lower. It was nice to go back to the basics and explore some entry-level questions. Sometimes as an undergraduate you forget the basics. It was helpful to go back and reinforce my understanding during my final year.
Emma: A lot of the work drew on my undergraduate experience, because in the first year we used The Economy 1.0. As I was entering second year and looking back at The Economy 2.0, it really helped me get a new perspective on how the textbook is designed to help students learn. This was very helpful for me.
What do you think of the CORE project and the way it teaches economics? Did you enjoy working on the project?
Emily: CORE Econ is far more interesting than traditional economics textbooks. I think it has a better approach to teaching; it’s a lot clearer. It has innovations to it as well, like the way it tests you and also provides answers. It’s much more student-focussed. A lot of the textbooks that we use have questions, but we don’t have access to the answers, which makes it harder to study. I feel like CORE’s textbooks are tailored for both students and teachers, which is great.
I definitely enjoyed it; it was a really good experience. At the time, I wanted to gain research experience, and it’s been really helpful in gaining that. Also, you get to work with lots of different teachers and professors, so it’s an interesting experience. And I also got to know Wendy Carlin, who is a very nice lady.
Emma: CORE is a great project, and it’s accessible to many people. If you’re interested in economics at an undergraduate level, you can read it and understand these concepts quite easily. Compared to traditional textbooks, CORE texts are much more interactive with figures that you can click on and manipulate. Traditional textbooks, which often only offer PDF files, can be harder to navigate. CORE really helps students learn, and helping to develop the textbook has really helped me.
What are you planning to do next?
Emma: My current plan is to apply for master’s programs in economics and business-related fields.
Emily: I’ve just completed my undergraduate degree in Economics at UCL, and I’ll be starting my MPhil in Economics at the University of Cambridge this autumn.
Many thanks to Emily and Emma for taking the time to talk to us about their experiences. If you’re interested in interning with CORE, please reach out to Graeme, our communications officer, at [email protected].
