kartelite

Sorry to be 6 years late in replying, but I've been a bit busy (started Econ PhD, left despite passing qualifiers, went to teach English overseas, took LSAT and got 176, didn't go to law school and worked a couple years in investment banking, now doing litigation consulting). As far as econ/litigation consulting goes as a career, I really, really enjoy it. Perhaps it's the firm/my team (not a big machine shop like CRA), but it's a great career for someone who is more interested in the "business" side of economics. I actually stumbled across this thread randomly and was reading an old post of mine before I realized I was the author. I would say that if you have the chance to do econ/lit consulting, definitely do it (whether pre or post grad school). I do non-lit work as well that has made great use of my background in econ/financial markets. 5-7 years ago, I thought bankers were mostly hacks who couldn't have cut it in academia. While it's true that a lot of them succeed without super-high intelligence/quant skills, a lot of them are very, very sharp. Top lawyers/legal academics as well.

It doesn't make sense that a program in a French-speaking city of all places would ask for a "passive knowledge" of one of the two official languages of the UN? That should take a month at most for someone who already speaks English, you could be fluent in a year French isn't that hard, you should thank them for making you do this investment.

It's sort of like the difference between a lawyer and legal consulting, if you catch my drift...

My recommendation is to go ahead and enter the PhD program, that way you can leave with the same MA degree but be about $30,000 ahead. I entered with the intention to get a PhD, but somehow in the second semester I started really getting burned out (no time off after college and had just done math MS to boot). Like, I would skip classes, not turn in complete hw's (couple times not at all), daydream in class...I wanted to be motivated but couldn't be. I had the worst grades of my life (all B- to B+) and instead of studying for quals went overseas for a couple weeks with my best friend. I'd figured I'd study all the next week for quals but only managed to start the night before...I just couldn't bring myself to study. I guess I got lucky with the questions because I passed both exams, and they weren't really stuff you could study much for anyways, so that was a bit comforting. But then I came over to Asia to teach in a pretty well known university's language institute for a summer, got offered an attractive full-time position like 14 paid weeks vacation and now I'm teaching 3 days/wk, and decided working here is more enjoyable than sticking out another 4-5 years for a PhD. So by entering a PhD program you'll leave yourself both choices. I was pretty sure I wanted a PhD but changed my mind (at least for now), so you could change your mind and end up wishing you were in a PhD program. Life never turns out like you think.

I've also heard numerous people insist that no one in a fraternity calls it a "frat." But I don't really know anyone from Cali...

Have you considered just going back to Japan for a PhD if you're worried about English, and especially if you plan on working in Asia anyway? I'm sure schools like Tokyo or Kobe or even others are very well-known regionally. The world doesn't begin and end at California and Maine.

Wait, isn't that a pretty long swim?

Particularly if you're from, say, Cuba.

Does the word "epsilon" mean anything to you?

Only "real" (non-internet) publication was in this book: Gale - Catalog - Greenhaven - Item Detail Other authors included faculty at Berkeley, Columbia (Baghwati), Yale & Yale Law School, a Fed President/CEO and several directors of think tanks, but I wouldn't call it academic econ research. Oh and Al Gore haha.

Maybe you could get back at them by writing in Italian, d'accord? [characters removed by mod]

Based on many of the responses on this thread, I feel that the economics profession will be ridden with people who refuse to examine interesting or important questions on the basis that the methods used aren't rigorous enough. A job market paper with some popular appeal, heaven forbid! At least it isn't a paper proving "such and such a theorem about such and such asymptotic distribution properties only holds if such and such conditions are met." :crazy:

Just to throw this out there, I picked UVA over Duke with similar aid packages. Seriously stop worrying about rankings, go wherever you think is best for you. While it doesn't interest me that much, labor is probably one of UVA's strengths as is applied micro in general.

I also got into and visited those schools last year...I would say for metrics especially UCSD is stronger, although of course going to Duke wouldn't be a bad choice.

Seriously, how hard is it? Honestly I don't really care much about the rankings, but I find it just a bit drole and pathetic that they can't get this done. If it'll be out in 2010, just say so.

Talk about a fun open house...hope you guys enjoy it!

I think it was the 30-4.

I have heard from young professors at my undergrad (top 15 liberal arts) that they are much more likely to hire someone who went to a liberal arts undergrad than someone with otherwise similar credentials who went to a larger school. Top liberal arts programs want someone who knows how to teach in that sort of environment, and having gone to such a school for undergrad is an indication you know what it's about.

To put it in perspective, by "stark contrast with my institution" he means that people at UVA don't walk around in overalls, flannel shirts and john deere hats like they do at Tech. just playin (i did my master's at state) ;).

Can't...stop...laughing...lol..

I don't agree with the consequent of your claim. It seems like the fact that you can leave after one year with an MA is all the more reason not to do a terminal MA first. Why? First off, is 2 econ MA's better than 1? Doesn't that look a bit strange on your resume? Seems in this case it would have been a true waste of a year. And if you get a PhD eventually, the first MA won't really do anything for your job prospects either. Second, PhD programs are generally funded while MA programs are usually not, so if you're not positive you want to go all the way for the PhD but you realize you'll at least need a master's, why not go to the program that'll fund you? I also think that terminal MA programs probably don't give a perfect glimpse into what PhD programs are actually like. I understand that some people do terminal MA's to improve the quality of school at which they can gain admission, but that is a separate issue. I'm not saying I recommend this route for everyone, but I did an MS in applied math before entering a PhD program in econ; I think that preparation has been just as useful as most MA programs in econ would have been. The first 8 weeks of one of our courses last fall was almost all review for me (probability), and our math course this term has also been getting pretty heavy into functional analysis which I took. I also got to write a thesis that would give me an insight into a lot of the techniques we use in the core courses, especially with recursive optimization and value functions (although I didn't know them by that name at the time). Additionally, if I wanted to leave after my MA in econ, I think I would bring a more attractive skill set to most employers than someone with my same econ MA as well as another econ MA. Plus you are more likely to get funded in a math or stats master's program.

I never felt really burdened last semester, but 4 can be a bit of a pain. I'm not TA'ing, but for those that are I imagine it's only worse.

I think attrition is considered rather high here. I know in the past about half the classes failed out because of prelims, although in last year's class 75% made it through after the retakes. I have wondered myself about why so few job candidates are posted, although as a first year I'm not really concerning myself with these questions. The professors are pretty friendly, and the first-year coursework is a bit miserable but I guess that's no different from any other place. We had midterms three days in a row last week so fortunately we have a bit of a lull as far as problem sets right now. Where is everyone coming in from for the open house?

We've got it. UCSD is great for behavior. Happy now ;)?

I think that's why he linked to this page: Group I Public