The Complete Guide to Becoming An Economist
The real pay, the real path, and the real day-to-day work — everything you need to decide if this career is for you, before you spend a dime on tuition.
by Alumigogo Books
non-fiction
What do economists actually do after the degree? Real pay, real paths, and a no-nonsense look at the job — before you commit.
About this book
So you’re thinking about becoming an economist. Maybe you’re good at math and find yourself arguing about inflation at dinner. Maybe a teacher said you’d be good at it. But what does an economist actually do on a Tuesday morning in an office, not in a textbook? Is it really worth the years of study and the cost of a degree? This guide gives you the straight answers — not from a recruiter or a professor who hasn’t touched a real dataset in a decade, but from someone who has seen the career from the inside and isn’t afraid to tell you when it’s a grind.
We start by showing you the actual job: what tools you’ll use (goodbye calculus, hello spreadsheets and coding), who you’ll work with, and what the mundane reality looks like alongside the interesting parts. Then we give you the honest self-assessment — what traits predict you’ll thrive, and the red flags that suggest you’ll be miserable. We walk you through the education and certification paths with realistic timelines and price tags, so you know what you’re signing up for. We break down the pay scale at the entry, mid, and senior levels, and which industries and regions actually hire economists.
And we don’t stop at the first job. We show you how to get hired with no experience, what a typical workday really looks like hour by hour, and where this career can take you in ten or even twenty years — including the adjacent roles people often pivot into. If you’re serious about weighing this career, this guide gives you the full picture so you can decide with your eyes open.
Reader Reviews
Thomas Hill
★★★★★I'm a junior in college torn between econ and accounting, and this helped me make a decision. The chapter on what economists actually do was eye-opening — I had no idea how much coding and data cleaning is involved. It wasn't all rosy, which I appreciated. The salary section made me realize I'd need a master's for the jobs I actually wanted, so it gave me a realistic time frame. Deducting one star because I wish the networking chapter had a few more city-specific examples, but overall it's a solid, honest guide.
Michelle Davis
★★★★★I’m a career-changer at 35 and found some useful parts, but also felt a US/PhD-leaning bias. Since I was looking at a master's for a private-sector job, I found the education chapter useful but thought it could have a bit more on the European master's experience. The 'Day in the Life' part was well written but a bit repetitive of Chapter 1. It’s worth a read to ground your expectations, but I wouldn’t use it as my only source.
Rebecca Thomas
★★★★★This book does exactly what it promises: it strips away the mystery around being an economist. I was stuck on the 'what do you even do' question, and Chapter 1 answered it in full detail. I loved the honest section too — it told me I might find the solitary data work unfulfilling, which I've always secretly known. It’s a smart, grounding read for anyone who's just getting started wondering if this is for them.
Stephanie Jackson
★★★★★The self-assessment checklist in Chapter 2 was worth the price of the book for me. I'm a high school teacher considering a switch, and it made me realize I was interested in the topic but not the daily grind of data analysis. The pay tables are realistic and not inflated like other sites. It saved me from potentially making a very expensive mistake, and I respect it for not sugar-coating the hard parts.
Robert Hall
★★★★★I'm a senior in high school applying to colleges and, honestly, this was a lot more conservative than what I heard from my counselor, which is a good thing. The chapter on salaries scared me a bit because it clarified you need the advanced degree to make real money, but I appreciate knowing that now. The one thing it's missing is a stronger list of free online resources to start studying from, but I guess that's not the book's main goal.
Robert Young
★★★★★As someone who just finished their first year in a master's of applied econ program, I wish I had this book a year ago. It was scarily accurate about the workday (I literally spent today wrestling with a broken dataset in Python and R, which is verbatim from the book). The 'Breaking In' chapter was full of practical moves I’ve now put in place — specific networking advice and portfolio tips that I haven't seen anywhere else. Amazing book to make sure you're making the right choice and to give you a head start.
Kathleen Williams
★★★★★I'm a federal government employee thinking about a lateral move into a data-focused role, and this guide helped me understand where econometric skills are used in the public sector. The chapter on the career ceiling was interesting — it shows you how high you can go if you're purely on the technical side versus the soft skills needed for management. It’s a bit dry in places but incredibly informative and honest. A solid, stable reference book for this decision.