You want to be able to approach interview questions and your TSA essay with utter confidence. Not a doubt in sight.
For this, you need:
- A healthy store of background knowledge
- To be exposed to to key ideas and their economic, political, and social context
- To practise understanding, discussing, and debating these key ideas and concepts
- To be familiar with the style of argumentation that will be expected of you as an Oxford candidate in economics
With these 4 skills under your belt, you’ll be able to impress the admissions tutors by creating an essay or producing an answer which hinges on economic or political insights from all the thinking you’ve done about them.
Topics
The below are just some examples of topics we’ll be covering with you. In reality, we’re likely to change things up a bit, according to the current affairs stories at the time.
The sessions will involve discussion, argumentation and some interrogation(!). They aren’t lectures and you’ll be an active participant, learning how to express your views with panache.
Each of the following topics can be spun to be relevant to you and your subject. We will draw on other social science subjects besides Economics and Management to make sure you can give nuanced answers to a variety of questions. The tutor will bear in mind your subject of choice and angle the question to your subject specialism.
Economics:
- What ‘is’ Economics (and what is it not)
- Issues regarding the tragedy of the commons
- The economic problem
- Keynes vs Classical models
- Adam Smith’s theory and its implications today
- The transfer of maths into economics
- Fiscal and monetary reforms of the last 100 years
- The roles of Keynes and Austrian schools of thought in shaping economic policy decisions in 2021
- Synthesis of economic equations in Microeconomics, such as ‘Why is MR twice AR?’
- Elasticity, labour markets, and the theory of the firm
- Behavioural economics - the theory and the real life context of nudges and shoves
Management:
- Differences between management and leadership
- Models of management
- The role of crisis management
- The role of technology in business operations
- Models of leadership (via case study and via situational reasoning)
- Financial ratios and financial analysis
- How to write reports
- The importance of customer service modelling
- Recruitment vs retention models
- Motivation theories
- Global markets and trade and how these are being impacted by different entrepreneurs
- Changes in technology and its impact on the workforce
- Case study research and discussion
Other Social Science Topics:
- Compulsory Purchase Orders (and how they impact residents)
- Why are we building HS2?
- How can the theory of the money illusion help us better regulate the banking sector?
- Key political moments from the last 100 years and their influence in shaping political thinking and epistemology today
- British vs Japanese vs American vs continental European decision making
- Keynes vs Hayek and the implications of their debates in today’s world