Professor Jeffrey Nilsen graduated from Princeton with Ph.D. degree in Economics and has been teaching at the American University in Bulgaria for 17 years now.
Hear more from this professor
Listen to the podcast to know why Professor Nilsen decided to study Economics and what his favorite out-of-classroom activity is.
Economics
Professor Nilsen teaches Principles courses as he calls them. These are Principles of Microeconomics and Principles of Macroeconomics. Also, he gives Money and Banking and Advanced Financial Crisis.
He believes that such courses teach analytical ability.
“You learn to analyze situations using the tools of economics. You also learn how markets work and the motives of buyers and sellers,” says Nilsen.
Changes in the Field
He shares that quite a lot has changed in the field of Economics because of the huge amount of data that is now accessible.
“There has been an evolution. 1994 is when I got my degree. All the data that we have now was just a dream…Now with all these sensors spitting out data, it is really easy to get it,” adds Professor Nilsen.
He also says that it is not only the quantity but the speed of application of this data that has increased.
“Another technological advance is that information gets so quickly incorporated into the financial markets that the prices react immediately.”
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Changes in the Heart
Surprisingly, Economics was not the first field that Professor Nilsen chose for his academic development. He had his bachelor’s degree in Computer Applications and Information Systems from the New York University and believed that it was the future.
However, his interest in people and society led him elsewhere.
“I wanted to have something that was more about with people, society as a whole. What is really important in a society is the economic interrelationships,” shares Professor Nilsen.
Photography
Aside from economic interrelationships, he is also interested in photographing natural sceneries. Professor Nilsen has specific preferences about the views that he is to capture.
“I look for weather drama, I look for beautiful perspectives and I find that a lot here,” he shares.
