Justice Reckis graduated in 2020 and got a full-time job as a fiscal and grant analyst with the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in Northern California.  “I actually was really fortunate in that I had a paid internship through Humboldt that ended up taking me on full time before I even graduated.”

On the Marketability of the Economics Degree

Justice believes that the toolkit that Econ majors have makes the Econ degree extremely marketable. Businesses find Econ majors appealing because they have the critical thinking and problem-solving skills to learn new things and do a little bit of everything.

"I’ve never worked with budgets, but because of the critical thinking and resource allocation kind of thinking that the Econ degree builds and instills… I do budgeting for millions of dollars worth of grants for 20 different subcontracted service centers… Even though I don't have experience in some of those areas, just having the critical thinking tools allows me to do a lot of different things in that realm.”

There is also a perception that Econ majors are a cut above business majors. “Business majors are a dime a dozen, and you have someone with an Econ degree…  you only hear about economics on CNN and politics and stuff so they think it's like, a higher echelon or something.”

Would Justice recommend the Humboldt Economics program?

“Yeah, I definitely would because it's so small and intimate and personal, like being able to just hang out in the Econ department and see your professors and talk to them just on the fly is so crazy when you think of how big other schools are!”

Justice is the first person in his family to get a college degree and Humboldt was a great choice for someone like him. “It was cost effective and also super intimate in terms of access to the professors. A super, super cool experience.”

Justice also really liked the strong emphasis on sustainability. “I feel like the level of education, and especially the courses that Humboldt offers — I mean, the sustainability and environmental economics curriculum is so robust … it’s crazy! Instead of just offering one environmental Econ course there's like three or four different courses. I love it!”

“I’m a huge advocate of the [Econ] department. All the professors were awesome and amazing! I loved my time at Humboldt, highly recommend it.”

On advice for a new student at Humboldt

“Take advantage of any of the internship opportunities that are out there… The Econ department [is] small and… Humboldt County… is in this position where it's really trying to grow and expand and so there's a lot of different opportunities for Econ students — again where it's like your application for an internship stands out against all the different business students because it's an Econ degree.”

Justice was the assistant editor of the Humboldt Economic Index and he did the SBDC internship. “Both of those were huge and… one obviously led to a full-time job.”

These hands-on opportunities also allowed Justice to hone his Excel skills and that has given him an edge in the business world. “I had to use Excel in my stats class and in my internship(s)… a lot of people don't really know Excel and so, the Excel skills were huge.”