Undergraduate Feature: Amy Zhou

Amy Zhou is in her 4B term of ARBUS with a Joint Honours in English Rhetoric and Economics. Amy is Very involved on campus, having been on the Federation Orientation Committee team for Arts Orientation, the Arts and Business Society, and as a past executive with the Economics Society!

“I always knew that I wanted to pursue the English Rhetoric program here at UW because the rhetoric program is really unique. I was unsure if I wanted to do political science or economics, so in first year, I took both ECON 101 and PSCI 101. I actually did really well in PSCI, but I wanted to get like that strong analytic quantitative background, which is why I chose economics.

My first co-op job was with Industry Canada (now known as Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada) as a Junior Economist. For my second, I was a Research Intern at the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance which is a lobby group that FEDS is a part of. For my last one, I was a Marketing Associate at Microsoft Canada. I liked all of them.

My advice is for both first and second years in economics who might be feeling a bit discouraged: everyone gets bad marks. It’s not necessarily one bad mark or bad test that will determine whether or not you continue in economics. You just have to stick through it, and learn from your bad experiences. Go to your profs office hours, study more, learn how to study economic models, and continue to study the same concepts over and over again until your eyes bleed. I feel like I’m someone who isn’t particularly good at math or economics naturally, and I have to work way way harder to stay at the same level as my peers but it’ll be all worth it in the end if I can get the degree!”

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