[econoclectic] EclectEcon: More Advice for Students Entering Economics Graduate School

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Posted by EclectEcon:
More Advice for Students Entering Economics Graduate School
http://econoclectic.powerblogs.com/posts/1202942897.shtml


   [1]Gabriel Mihalache is about to embark on a graduate school adventure
   in North America, and he became concerned after reading [2]this advice
   to incoming economics grad students. Here are some edited comments I
   have provided for him (and others):
   1. Some schools (but not all) have profs who seem to think it is some
   measure of their masculinity to fail students and be tough on them. If
   you have selected one of those schools imbued with testosterone
   poisoning, and you find that out ex post, you have little choice but
   to suck it up and tough it out (or drop out). Usually there are
   cooler, more rational folks around who wonât let them fail everyone
   they teach just to prove how tough, smart, and rigorous they are.
   2. Get the old exams! Study from the old exams! For some courses, I
   could not for the life of me figure out why so many of my classmates
   were getting such high grades. Then they told me about the old exams
   that had been floating around. Many/most profs use variants of the
   same types of questions, even if they don't ask exactly the same
   questions, and studying from the old exams is great preparation for
   those courses.
   3. Study groups! I had some dynamite study partners in grad school. We
   complemented each other beautifully, and we all gained from it.
   4. Read all the papers the prof has written on the topic of the
   course, even if the papers are not on the course reading list.
   Egomaniacs that they/we are, they/we teach from these papers and ask
   about them on exams. If the prof has written tonnes of stuff on that
   topic, at least try to read the abstracts, introductions, and
   conclusions (and any published comments/debates!)
   I once had a prof who was lecturing almost exclusively from his own
   papers. When I asked him about it, he replied in shock, âWhy are you
   reading those papers? Theyâre not on the reading list.â I guess he had
   never had a student do more than the minimum. I had read them during
   the break before his course began, just to get ready for the course.
   5. Donât give up on a subject. I had one course in which the prof
   (citing a book review in the old AER) pointed out that in one place
   the number of equations didnât equal the number of unknowns. After the
   course was over, I felt uneasy about that particular material, so I
   went through my text to make sure I understood what he had been
   teaching. No matter how hard I worked on the math, I couldnât see an
   error in the text, so I went to see him about it. It turned out the
   math had been edited in the second printing of the text (which I was
   using, but he still had the first printing). My doing this showed him
   I was a serious scholar, and in the process I learned some more.
   6. Being buddies with profs is not a bad thing, but do NOT expect it
   to help with grades, reference letters, etc. Performance matters.
   I realize you have a sense of foreboding when you read a piece like
   the one to which you linked. Let me assure you that it is mostly
   correct. Life in graduate school can be unpleasant. One particularly
   bad year (bad admission decisions, bad profs) many years ago, we had
   nearly a third of our first year class drop out. Given the environment
   that existed then, I didnât blame them.
   But most schools have fixed these problems and try to fix them quickly
   when they are discovered.
   Nevertheless, much of grad school is a test of your desire and
   stamina. Learn from it, because once you become an assistant professor
   itâs just more of the same. If you throw yourself into it and really
   get a kick out of learning new stuff, you'll be well-prepared for the
   future. It might even be fun.
   Addendum: Mike Moffatt has more [3]here.

References

   1. http://gabriel.mihalache.name/ei/article/291/get-scared-get-very-scared
   2. http://www.econphd.net/downloads/mp_surv.pdf
   3. http://economics.about.com/b/2008/02/14/advice-for-phd-students.htm