Riel Tetreault
BSc (Hons in Economics) 2020
I am thankful to the ±«Óãtv Economics Department for sparking my interest in the subject, and providing me with a strong background in the field.
When I came to Halifax, I actually came for the King’s Foundation Year Program. However, I also wanted to continue with math and sciences at ±«Óãtv. I picked economics because it was considered a science, it related to my interest in politics, and it did not have any labs. I was very bad at labs. I was good at math though, so I took honours calculus. I learned I was only so-so at math. Econ it was. First year econ is, best I can tell, a chore at most schools. I did well, and found it mildly interesting. I was far more taken away by philosophy, in which I did less well. I did enjoy feeling like econ could teach me practical levers through which to interact and influence the world around me. Keeping my options open, I stuck with the more rigorous BSc program in my combined honours of economics and contemporary studies. I grew to love econ, particularly the sort of diagramatic puzzles one encounters in intermediate macro graphs, or the analysis of games found in Strategic Thinking. To the surprise of a party-politics minded younger me, I fell firmly into the camp of microeconomics. I formed strong relationships with my profs, first with Professor Weina Zhou, then Professor Ruth Forsdyke and many others. Their advice solidified my decision to stick with economics. I chose to complete my honours in econ, with an eye to grad school. The honours program had great camaraderie, and it was a well-guided walk through researching that made me eager to keep learning and applying the econ skills I was studying. I got accepted into UBC’s Vancouver School of Economics, with scholarship and fellowship awards, and found out ±«Óãtv had prepared me very well. In particular, Strategic Thinking and 4th year Micro at Dal did such a good job of preparing me that I had no new material to cover in my master’s level micro course (and I only attended 3 lectures). One year and change after my degree at King’s and Dal, I have now completed my Master’s at UBC with an A+ average and a major research paper on election codes and community well being. I now work at Big River Analytics, pursuing a wide range of topics in my ideal field of Indigenous economics. I am thankful to the ±«Óãtv Economics Department for sparking my interest in the subject, and providing me with a strong background in the field.