What is 1st year like?

[nci1234]

Any PhD students can you give us a sense of what 1st year is like?

What is work-life balance like? As a TA?

How can we prepare ourselves to excel in the first year?

[Kaysa]

Take a look at this

 

http://law.vanderbilt.edu/academics/academic-programs/phd-program-in-law--economics/student-resources/download.aspx?id=3285

 

You will notice that he starts off saying "Welcome to the threshold of hell" and says he is kidding. To be honest, he isn't.

 

Also, before you start graduate school, become acquainted with what happens to us once we are near graduation.

 

http://www.econjobrumors.com/

 

Take a good look at that webpage because it'll give you very interesting perspective of what you'll be dealing with :whistle:

[dreck]

I will start my first year this Fall, but pretty much everyone, at every school, says that the first year is pretty much just miserable. The advice for preparation this Summer I hear most: relax, and enjoy three months of freedom. Any math/other preparation you do should probably take less than an hour a day. That's what I'm planning, at least.

 

That said, I know for a fact that many of the grad students on this forum are not nearly so down as Kaysa about graduate school, especially years 2 through 5/6. In addition, it is common knowledge that anonymity on the internet brings out the very worst in people. This fact should completely undermine the credibility of anything you read on econjobrumors.com. What kind of people comment frequently on youtube? The most ignorant, the least intelligent. Which economists do you think post frequently on econjobrumors??

[Kaysa]

I will start my first year this Fall, but pretty much everyone, at every school, says that the first year is pretty much just miserable. The advice for preparation this Summer I hear most: relax, and enjoy three months of freedom. Any math/other preparation you do should probably take less than an hour a day. That's what I'm planning, at least.

 

That said, I know for a fact that many of the grad students on this forum are not nearly so down as Kaysa about graduate school, especially years 2 through 5/6. In addition, it is common knowledge that anonymity on the internet brings out the very worst in people. This fact should completely undermine the credibility of anything you read on econjobrumors.com. What kind of people comment frequently on youtube? The most ignorant, the least intelligent. Which economists do you think post frequently on econjobrumors??

 

Heh heh... I'll let you find out once you've passed your qualifiers and are about to graduate.

[asquare]

I've heard first year described as "drinking from a fire hose" and I think that's pretty accurate. There's a huge amount of material to learn. It's likely you won't actually master 100% of the material in all of your classes, which is a huge change from undergraduate classes for most PhD students. You'll spend more time on problem sets than in class. You'll constantly have problem sets or exams hanging over your head -- there is always something due, something coming up. You will get problem sets where you have absolutely no idea how to even start. And you will figure it out. You will work with your classmates. You'll feel like the dumbest kid in the class at some point. You'll find yourself rushing a conference room after a seminar ends in order to get a left-over but free sandwich. You'll wonder why you didn't go into investment banking like your college roommate.

 

There's substantial heterogeneity in math background and previous econ experience when starting first year. If you are one of the students who has already taken grad micro or lots of formal math, you will feel a little smug that you are so well prepared, and you will think that first year isn't nearly as bad as people say. If you are one of the students who hasn't seen MWG or taken much math, you will wonder what exactly you've gotten yourself into, if this was a mistake, and whether you've accidentally enrolled in a math graduate program, since there doesn't seem to be any economics in any of your classes.

 

If you want to do applied work, at some point you will wonder what the point of first year is at all. First year micro and macro will seem totally irrelevant to the things that made you want to study economics and you will be convinced that the core courses were designed specifically to make you miserable.

 

You'll spend more time in the econ department than at home, more time on classes than you ever have before. You might think you will be able to have a social life outside of the econ department, but at some point you will realize that you can't stop yourself from telling jokes about separating hyperplanes and that really, your classmates are the only ones laughing. You'll decide that work-life balance might have to wait a year...

 

First year really is hard. The material is difficult, the standards are high, and the stakes are big. It's a big change from undergraduate. It takes up more of your time than you expect. More of the responsibility for learning is on you and less on the faculty or the university. First year is all-consuming. It's hard to find time for a life away from the department. It can be demoralizing. But it is not impossible. You will not be the only one who struggles. The vast majority of you will learn the material, make it through first year, and move on to bigger and better things. For all the talk of attrition on this forum and among first year students, most people DO eventually pass their prelims! And even though you'll feel like you are on a treadmill you can't get off, you'll have fun. You will share bad jokes and too much beer with your classmates, and when skit night comes around, you will discover that there were actually some very funny moments during the year. You'll look back at the end of the year and be amazed at how much you learned, at how problems that looked impossible at the beginning of the year are simple now. And later on, you'll read a paper or have an idea for your own research, and realize that the material you thought was useless during first year is actually making you a much better economist than you could have been otherwise.

 

It's hard. But it's worth it.

[Gecko]

Good post, this. ^_^

[bobofett]

great post asquare! thanks for sharing this

[treblekicker]

There's substantial heterogeneity in math background and previous econ experience when starting first year. If you are one of the students who has already taken grad micro or lots of formal math, you will feel a little smug that you are so well prepared, and you will think that first year isn't nearly as bad as people say. If you are one of the students who hasn't seen MWG or taken much math, you will wonder what exactly you've gotten yourself into, if this was a mistake, and whether you've accidentally enrolled in a math graduate program, since there doesn't seem to be any economics in any of your classes.

i want to highlight this paragraph. there is indeed a great deal of heterogeneity (though i imagine at the best schools this is less true), and some will find the first year harder than others. but even the people who have the best preparation will still have to work hard and likely won't have the social life they'd want in an ideal world. this may sound strange, but i think this is another instance where math intensive backgrounds may help: those who were able to take a heavy load of tough math classes and still have a respectable social life (and were generally happy) will be able to cope with the first year best.

 

you can still be happy while being a grad student; a work-life balance is difficult, but still attainable, even when you have MWG problem sets looming.

[good_tea]

It seems like whenever people talk about how hard first year is, they cannot do so without saying "MWG" at least once. In terms of difficulty/workload, is micro much worse than macro/statistics/econometrics? How do they generally compare? I am sure it depends on the program but it would still be interesting to get a general idea (and if asquare were answering, it would be particularly interesting for me :)).

[hotfuss]

You'll find yourself rushing a conference room after a seminar ends in order to get a left-over but free sandwich. You'll wonder why you didn't go into investment banking like your college roommate.

 

 

I like this haha.

[treblekicker]

It seems like whenever people talk about how hard first year is, they cannot do so without saying "MWG" at least once. In terms of difficulty/workload, is micro much worse than macro/statistics/econometrics? How do they generally compare? I am sure it depends on the program but it would still be interesting to get a general idea (and if asquare were answering, it would be particularly interesting for me :)).

MWG problems are notoriously hard and the solutions manuel is littered with mistakes. the only first year text which has a similar reputation (not to diminish the difficulty of other texts -- they're plenty challenging) is stokey, lucas, prescott. in fact, in a set of lecture notes provided to us by our micro professor, he writes something along the lines of, "why is SLP so bloody hard?"

 

how difficult each class is will almost entirely depend on the professor.

Edited April 28, 2010 by treblekicker

[mathemagician]

Macro is the most difficult out of Micro, Metrics, and Macro at UT. We used SLP, Sargent, class notes, and a few papers. While MWG problems are pretty hard, SLP are much harder IMO. Even when you read through the solutions manual, SLP problems are still hard.

 

Econometrics is hard but no one pays attention. You're going to look up whatever test statistic when you actually use it anyways.

[asquare]

It seems like whenever people talk about how hard first year is, they cannot do so without saying "MWG" at least once. In terms of difficulty/workload, is micro much worse than macro/statistics/econometrics? How do they generally compare? I am sure it depends on the program but it would still be interesting to get a general idea (and if asquare were answering, it would be particularly interesting for me :)).

good_tea, part of it is that MWG is kind of short hand for "technically difficult, lacking in intuition, and symbolically despised by graduate students." The book itself is more of a reference than something you can sit down and read chapter-by-chapter, but that's true for other graduate texts as well. We rarely had problems assigned from MWG (or other textbooks) -- faculty generally wrote their own problem sets.

 

Micro is the most proof-based of the three core classes, at least at Michigan. That makes it hard for people who haven't had much formal math. It's also furthest removed from similarly-titled undergraduate-level economics classes. How it compares to the other first year classes depends on who is teaching, but I'd say that the first semester of micro is harder than the first semester of macro and stats/econometrics here. I think the quality of the teaching is better in the macro sequence, especially the second semester.

[dsdoodle]

How many hours of free time would you say you had a week, on average? Time where you find yourself doing something other than school?

[good_tea]

Thanks for the information!

[wuwo]

To those already in graduate school, would you say that problem sets are generally more difficult than exams?

[chisquared]

To those already in graduate school, would you say that problem sets are generally more difficult than exams?

 

While I'm not in graduate school just yet, I would imagine that it depends on what you really mean by "difficult".

 

Exams and problem sets probably pose different types of difficulty. Problem sets generally ask you to think harder and more creatively, while tests require you to think quickly and clearly, since you need to be able to beat the clock.

 

Of course, I don't have personal experience to back this claim up, so feel free to disagree.

[behavingmyself]

How many hours of free time would you say you had a week, on average? Time where you find yourself doing something other than school?

Or, framed differently, how many hours a week do/did you work on school?

[mathemagician]

To those already in graduate school, would you say that problem sets are generally more difficult than exams?

 

While I'm not in graduate school just yet, I would imagine that it depends on what you really mean by "difficult".

 

Exams and problem sets probably pose different types of difficulty. Problem sets generally ask you to think harder and more creatively, while tests require you to think quickly and clearly, since you need to be able to beat the clock.

 

Of course, I don't have personal experience to back this claim up, so feel free to disagree.

 

We had some tests that were significantly harder than the problem sets. I'm not sure what the profs were trying to do but it doesn't bode well that your 1.5 hour test is harder than the HWs you spend 2 nights working on x.x

[mathemagician]

Or, framed differently, how many hours a week do/did you work on school?

 

How many hours of free time would you say you had a week, on average? Time where you find yourself doing something other than school?

 

It's hard to say because a good portion of the time you spent not working, you're still thinking about economics.

 

I spent about 15-25 hours average per week doing going to classes, review sessions, TA work, TA class, office hours. This is usually pretty inflexible and consistent per week.

 

Outside of class studying took another 20-35 hours a week. This is more dependent on the amount of work assigned and when exams are coming up.

 

Add in food consumption, commuting, necessary bodily functions and hygine, there isn't that much free time but the perception that you have to work 16 hour days is wrong.

[dreck]

To those already in graduate school, would you say that problem sets are generally more difficult than exams?

 

In both my graduate micro and econometrics classes it was (hardest to easiest): final>problem sets>midterm(s). I expect that varies a lot by the professor, school, and the student's strengths.

[treblekicker]

at many schools, or at least here, absolute difficulty is somewhat irrelevant, since everything is curved. surely if everyone does exceedingly well, then everyone will pass. similarly, if everyone does poorly, a larger portion than normal will received poor grades; however, what will typically matters is how well prepared you are relative to your classmates. and what you'll find is that many, if not most, students study quite a bit. so even if you expect the test to be easy and you feel confident, you are taking a large risk by not studying hard.

 

secondly, absolute difficulty of problem sets, tests, and classes at large (not to mention course content) varies from school to school. once you arrive, during math camp, likely every second year and their grandmother will give you the inside scoop on your fall coursework, offering strategies and stories. so unless a poster here attends the school you are enrolling at, most, if not all, of the advice or anecdotes we can offer are useless (in as much as they could "prepare" you for what comes). if people want to share horror stories and hilarious gaffes, well, i'm all for that.

 

you all should try to get your first year off your mind and enjoy 3 to 4 months of your life -- you won't get them back, nor will have as much free time for a painfully long time.