Chikaneme (Chika) Orioha double-majored in economics and natural science with a minor in psychology. Having lived most of her life in Texas, she was interested in moving to Baltimore: “a city with a rich history and great people.”
Chika is appreciative of the flexibility that Hopkins offers with regard to fulfilling requirements. This allowed her to take a range of courses, which is how in fact she came to major in economics. “I took an economics course in my senior year in high school and found it interesting, but had no plans to go further. Then in freshman spring I enrolled in Microeconomics to fulfill a distribution requirement and enjoyed the course. I ultimately fell in love with the way the discipline analyzes different aspects of the human decision-making process. I like that economists can create mathematical models that explain, and sometimes predict, human behavior.”
One of Chika’s favorite classes was “Rich Countries, Poor Countries,” taught by Professor Dasgupta. “Professor Dasgupta did an excellent job of explaining the different theoretical models that attempt to explain cross-country income differences and challenged us to test the models against the real world.“
During her time at Hopkins, Chika was the chief financial officer of Marque, Hopkins first fashion magazine. She pursued her economic interests as chair of the Collaboration Committee in the Economics Club, a group that provides networking opportunities to undergraduate Economics majors, and as a founding member of Smart Woman Securities at Johns Hopkins, an investment group.
Ultimately, Chika hopes to become a physician, but she appreciates the fact that economics gave her additional skills and pushed her to reason analytically. “The ability it gave me to formulate a rigorous argument was extremely beneficial in my other classes and my everyday life.”
Chika advises other potential majors to utilize all opportunities provided by the department, including the excellent tutoring available through PILOT (Peer-Led Team Learning), to ensure that they will be successful in their courses.