hi guys! nice to meet you!let me intro myself.i am a 1st year going to 2nd year economics undergrad and i will be doing summer internship in strategic consultancy specialising in mining industry. i will be placed in the econometrics team and i suppose that i will be constructing econometrics model. however, i have very basic, close to no experience whatsoever in econometrics modelling. do you have any recommendation for books/ course etc? my internship is starting this july and i have no clue!please help! thank you so much!xxx

don't worry about it, they will teach you what you need to know.....internships are learning exercises in the world of work....

You will pick up the econometrics content easily, so you should focus your preparation on your Excel/VBA skills - there are many good books out there, including those available from the mrexcel.com website

do you mind intro the kind of stuff i will expect to do & the gd bk titles i can prepare myself for? what's VBA? i learnt basic stata in sch and i'm not an expert at all..

In that case, you're f*cked

U won't use VBA.. VBA stands for Visual Basic for Application.. It is basically a programming language allowing to do tons of things in Excel.As for the econometric modelling, don't worry. You only need a solid knowledge of very basic things. Let's say that it is very unlikely that they'll use something more complicated than straight OLS. Books are not very helpful; they are rather theoretical and the only way to learn how to set up an econometric model is practice!!

Firstly, don't worry about anything Kath. If you're studying economics, then you will have a good grasp of the basic concepts. They won't be expecting you to hit the ground running and start doing all sorts of complicated models from day one. Far more important is that you go in there with a good attitude, a willingness to learn, do your best and don't feel afraid to ask for support and help if you need it. Good luck!

aw thank you so much for the support guys! i was looking through this program called Eview 6.0 for econometric modelling. i wonder if it's widely used in UK. and looks like the student version is $35. i was thinking of buying it and teach myself. there's the other normal version but it cost $500 :S but surely hands on practice is better than reading books alone on modelling.i had some exposure to valuation modelling as well such as discounted cash flow etc involving use of excel. and i wonder if there's an overlap in the use of such tools in consultancy too?cheersxxwhat are your thoughts on this?

Management consultancies tend to build their models in Excel due to its flexibility (and interoperability with clients)

Kath,it is very likely that you will use Eviews. While Stata is more used in universities, Eviews is used in businesses because it's lot easier and user friendly than Stata. If you have some experience with Stata then it'll take you very little time to learn how to use Eviews. Really, it is an extremely easy program, especially if u are using Stata.Now, u must be clear about one thing. Valuation (DCF and similar) is one thing, econometric modelling is something completely different. In econometric modelling is all about regressions. I honestly doubt that you will use Excel for regressions, since excel can only perform very simple OLS. Probably, you will use Excel for descriptive statistics and reporting.The best thing you can do is relax and enjoy the free time u have before ur internship. Since you are an undergrad at the end of 1st year, they know that you are NOT an expert in econometrics. They'll teach you everything, but they will not require you to know how to run a simple regression. Econometrics requires a lot of practice; there is a big difference between theory and empirical applications. Relax, you are a 1st year undergrad, it is just normal that you have little econometrics experience. Don't try to get in there as if you were a PhD student because, believe me, econometrics requires time and patience.

Hi Kath,I agree with most of what's been said, but it's really not possible to do a good job of econometric analysis without a basic grasp of econometric theory ( ... even though many people you work with will only have a weak grasp themselves). An excellent text on *applied* econometrics is Ramanathan; see http://econ.ucsd.edu/~rramanat/embook5.htm. An even better text if you want to understand the theory a bit better, without losing anything in terms of applications, is Wooldridge; see http://www.swlearning.com/economics/wooldridge/wooldridge2e/wooldridge2e.html .Cheers,Geno

Most financial modelling is done using Excel. Dont worry too much if you are not that great at excel. They'll prep you once you get there. In the meantime, I would pick up a decent excel book or read up on it on many excel websites the basic excel matmetical functions that will be used in those models such as NPV, IRR, PV etc...