The Econ Games 2023 NKU Teams

Meet my students and learn about The Econ Games

Summary:

1. Why you need to participate in The Econ Games

2. Meet the teams

3. Learn more about their excitement

In 2018, Dr. Darshak Patel and I started to build The Econ Games. We recognized several gaps in the economics education market and wanted to fill them. Here is what we noticed lacking in economic education:

1. Employers hiring would often leave out Economics as a possible degree option. Even when the job duties were econ related, the search often neglected to include economics.

2. Economics is a degree that is versatile and opens up many career options. However, recruiting students to economics was difficult because career paths options were overwhelming for students to recognize.

3. Most economic student professional development is geared toward students interested in graduate education or research careers. Very few professional development options are available for students interested in industry.

4. Schools with smaller econ communities do not have enough econ students to build a community and attract speakers.

5. Networking opportunities for undergraduate economics students are limited.

6. Economics students want more “real- life” experience.

7. Employers want to access to students with data coding, analysis, and communication skills.

8. Economics students felt lost and needed a community.

9. Economic educators also needed a community to connect with other economic educators.

We decided to fill these gaps by developing The Econ Games. We work directly with an industry partner each year that provides us with a real-world problem. We are meeting on March 23-24th with MiddleGround Capital at Gatton College of Business for this year’s conference. Students will have 24 hours to solve the problem and provide data analysis to help support their solution. Between now and March 23rd, we have developed an online community where students can interact, learn skills, build networks, attend speaker series, and grow professionally!

This year, Mr. Ryan Goss and I are working with some amazing NKU Econ students. I am proud of these students for challenging themselves and taking on this learning opportunity. If you want to see their journey, I encourage you to look at some of their LinkedIn posts. Here are some examples

Mary Merklin- Post
James Blazina- Post
Danish Khan-Post

Here are the 2023 NKU teams

Team Fearless Five

Lead by Asia Norman

Members: Kylie Koeninger, Kyah Martin, Destiny Ca'Mel, and Danish Khan

Ruwayda Mahdi- not pictured

Team Allyson

Lead by Allyson Kunkel

Members: Mary Merklin, Reach Thearith, Evan Maurer, Jamen Walz

Mariam Sidiahmed- not pictured

Team Just One Vowel

Lead by Becca Wilson

Members: Abhinam Joshi, Fawwaaz Abdulazeez, Grace McConn, Gavin Sustarich

Team Aro

Lead by Aro Rajaonah

Members: James Blazina, Anna Vroegindewey, Taylor Shearer, David Neff

Want to learn more about The Econ Games?