What makes an economics student?

Am so glad to have finished the last exam for Semester 1. However, one question that comes to mind after the Macroeconomics exam is: Do I really know what macroeconomics is about?

The syllabus of SMU Economics focuses a lot on the quantitative aspects. And so at the same time, we cover very in depth into some of the graduate materials. For example, we are taught how a growth in technology leads to an increase in effective labour force in the Solow growth model. Other very contemporary concepts include the IS-MP / AD-IA models on employment, interest rates and inflation.

Though the SMU syllabus is strong in maths, it is not matched by the breadth of the macroeconomics syllabus it covers (at least for the lessons I attended). The lessons do not look at, or at least not in detail, the Phillips curve, lorenz curve, gini coefficient, IS-LM (I am like wtf is it when friends from other Economics courses were talking about it). And hey I am sure there are many other macro concepts out there that I do not know of.

So... given that I know almost nothing about all the traditional areas of Economics, what makes an Economics student an Economics student? I have really no idea. One argument I came up with to explain the scope of SMU syllabus is this.

Economics evolve rapidly over time.

Theories in this field do not remain the same. Thus, what was learnt 20 years ago becomes obsolete now and what is learnt now will become useless in the future. Unless I am setting the interest rates of Singapore now, the contemporary models I learn will only serve to become part of the syllabus of Economics history by the time I graduate. So, there is more value in learning the process of learning Economics models- maths is a great tool to be used for analysis. The professors here are teaching exactly that. SMU students get equipped with the skill sets relevant to analyse future Economics models through the lens of Mathematics.

But hey wait... I do not know if I am experiencing self-serving bias as I try to justify the use of learning the quantitative side of Economics. Indeed, sometimes I do feel that I am not really an Economics student as I lack the confidence to tell non-Economics students about all the macroeconomic theories (because I am too specialised into just a few concepts!).

Nevertheless, there is not much point in learning everything anyway. In the future, whatever job I do, except if I become a professor/teacher in Economics, the knowledge learnt will probably not be used. Well, then what is the use of studying? As said by Mankiw, professor of Harvard University, "Your math courses are one long IQ test. We use math courses to figure out who is really smart." So that's the point.