If you want to think like an economist, one important thing is to ask a lot of questions and ask about why things are happening and what impacts they might have for different players in the economy.

Question what's driving prices? What's driving economic growth? What's behind hiring?

Be curious about what is the truth and how can I understand what is happening by leveraging as many resources as possible. Going in the news. Reading a book. Listening to an expert in the field. So, just be curious about what's happening and try to understand why is it that is happening.

That's really the job of an economist, is to dissect and look beyond prices and quantities to try to come up with a story of what's driving up prices, what's behind the labour market. It's not just numbers and math.

I think economic can be pretty fun. I think a lot of people assume it's a lot of math and boring work. We don't always only do this math and boring work. We have a lot of interaction with other kinds of people. We regularly talk to businesses to see what kind of decisions they're thinking of making in the future. We talk to different people in the financial industry to see what kind of risks they're concerned about. So it's a lot more social than I think people expect, which is nice.

One cool thing about my job is the fact that you're looking at what's happening now  with people behavior and with current economic conditions. It's not something about what happened 100 years ago. It's about what is happening now and how can we understand the current conditions so that we can understand the factors that are driving them and see how they're going to evolve over time so we can better understand what the future will hold for us. 

Economics does affect everyone out there. There's a lot of small things that you might not even think about the price that you're paying for a soft drink, the availability of jobs. If you're looking for a part time job, how much you might pay to take the bus to school. There's a whole bunch of these kinds of things and everything really in the end is part of the economy.

There's a concept in economics called opportunity cost, the concept of opportunity cost is something that kind of, it makes you think between the trade offs that you have to face whenever you're making a decision. If you come back from school, for instance, you always have a decision. Do I go play video games or do I, for instance, go and do my homework? So if you decide to go play video games, the cost that you're going to be paying for doing so is that you’re not going to be able to do your homework. And then you ask yourself, is that cost worth it?

Sometimes it can be very complex when you think of research or economic topics, but it can also be very simple when you're thinking of everyday life and you're thinking of what what decisions should I make?

I think at the heart of economics is this balance between supply and demand forces that determines, everything we do. The prices we pay for everyday items. The quantity that a company chooses to produce for their products. 

Let's say you have this trading card and it's highly sought out for. The prices for this card will go up because there's a lot of demand out there and it's a rare entity. It's probably going to be very valuable because there's not a lot of supply and there’s a lot of demand for it.

So, economics is all about decision making of everyday people like you and me.

It's a study of how we utilize limited resources in the most efficient way possible, how countries produce things and how they can interact with each other to maximize their ability to produce goods.

So understanding how the economy is working, I think is something that can help everyone out.

Economics is everywhere in our lives. Prices we pay, how much we get paid, our salaries, everything we buy, everything, money related. That's also a part of economics.