1. Decide on the topic which you wish to study. Students who have completed an internship and wish to receive credit must complete an Independent Study as detailed below.

2. Contact the instructor with whom you took a class on that subject -- or any other instructor. For example, if you want to work on the banking systems, you would contact your Money and Banking instructor. It is better if you talk to senior graduate students to help you with this. We have few senior faculty and they are already committed to working with a multitude of graduate students, consequently, they do not have enough time to work with undergraduates. The list of Economics graduate students and their fields of interest is contained in this Handbook.

3. Talk to the instructor about your project and ask if he/she will work as your supervisor. This person will need to talk to you for half an hour or so about the topic, can give you pointers on the format of the report, and suggest references, data sources, and readings. It will be helpful if you bring a transcript (or APAS) to the appointment so that the instructor can review your academic history.

4. Next, get a Student/Faculty contract form from the Undergraduate Adviser, Madhu Bhat, in room 1073 Heller Hall.

5. You and the instructor must fill out this form and sign it.

6. Once the form has been completed, please take the form to Professor Simran Sahi, Director of Undergraduate Studies, for her signature. When you have done that, you can register at 49 Johnston Hall.

7. The amount of work to be done depends on the number of credits for which you register. For one credit of study, we expect a 7-10 page paper with economic analysis - remember the effort must be one third the amount put in for an economics course. For a two credit study, we expect a 10-15 page report with economic and statistical analysis; again, remember the effort must be equal to two thirds of the effort put into a course For a three credit study, you will need to put in as much effort as you would into an economics course. We expect a 15-20 page paper with economic analysis using data and statistical techniques. The paper must be written in the form of a standard economics journal article. You must examine an economic issue and make your contribution. Survey papers are not acceptable.

8. After you have completed the report (it must always be in the form of a written paper accompanied by an electronic version of the paper , related diagrams, tables, bibliography, etc.), take it to the instructor with whom you are working so that the instructor can read it and assign a grade.

9. Economics 4991 (and 4993) is for Honors theses only.
   

For more details, contact Simran Sahi, Director of Undergraduate Studies (ssahi@econ.umn.edu) or Madhu Bhat, Undergraduate Advisor econugra@econ.umn.edu).