You went to a small liberal arts college. What are the advantages and disadvantages of going to a small liberal arts college when you plan to go to grad school in economics?
In
going to graduate school in economics, you are training to be able to
rigorously explore important and interesting
questions about the choices people make. Because it is such a
wide-ranging discipline, a wide-ranging undergraduate education, as
emphasized in a liberal arts college, can be an asset. If it gives
students more context in which to think about the tradeoffs
people have to make in a variety of settings, it can be a big advantage
in developing and sustaining a research agenda. Another, more concrete,
advantage of attending a liberal arts college is the small classes and
how that leads to a situation where students
really get to know their professors. This can lead to students having
more (and more productive) conversations about their futures. The
interaction with faculty that is encouraged there can really help
students understand if graduate school really is for them
and, if so, get them on a path to being as prepared as possible for it.
A student who wants to go to graduate school in economics is really not
all that constrained by the undergraduate course offerings at a liberal
arts college: between the economics, math,
and computer science courses, a liberal arts education can certainly
prepare students for the rigors of a top-flight graduate program.
One
disadvantage of attending a liberal arts college, as compared to a
larger research university, is that it is much
more difficult to take (or even audit) graduate classes that might help
prepare students for studying economics at the graduate level (or to
get a sense of whether or not it is something they would want to
pursue). Furthermore, at larger universities, faculty
members may have larger research budgets that allow them to bring on
undergraduate students to do paid research work. If you already know you
want to be an economist, the availability of that type of work could be
an attractive feature of a larger university.
Are there any books that were important to your development as an economist or that you would recommend to aspiring
economists?
The Winner’s Curse
by Richard Thaler was one book that really made me excited about
studying economics more deeply. It digs into a variety of situations
where economic
theory does not explain observed behavior. The paradoxes described are
interesting individually, but I liked the book so much because it got me
thinking generally about the limits of theories designed to explain
what people do. The realization that economics
was “messy” in this way made it much more interesting to me and made me
excited about the challenges it presents.Also, even though they aren't about economics specifically, I always think back to several books written by Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, about his life and experiences. There are several of them (The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, and What Do You Care What Other People Think?). I’m obviously not a physicist, but his discussions of science and curiosity apply to economists as well.
What is the worst advice that you have ever been given about becoming an economist?
I
actually got really good advice from my professors and mentors about
preparing for graduate school and what to expect, so I really can’t
complain about that at all.
One thing I wish I had realized (I was probably told this at some
point, but it was the sort of thing I suppose I had to learn for myself)
was that the transition from coursework to doing your own research can
be tricky. They are complementary phases of graduate
school, certainly, but they require different skills. It’s helpful to
at least keep some part of your brain thinking about what types of
questions you want to address even as you are powering through your
coursework. That makes navigating the transition a
bit easier.
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