pevdoki1

Best: Abstract Algebra. Lots of really pretty proofs, made me see the beauty of math. Of course, I don't remember anything anymore. Worst: Math Stats. All memorization, quite boring stuff. I don't think it was particularly useful for econometrics, either. Bah.

Minnesota may not have the best placements; that's because it doesn't always attract the best students (to be frank, it saw its share of bad students). On the other hand, if you are really good, you can do really well at Minnesota. The good placements are not random. If you are top 5 material, you'll get incredible training here and get a good placement, guaranteed (as much as such a thing can be guaranteed).

Thought it might be a good idea for you. You're basically halfway done with the program!

Are you alluding to the mighty ????

Depends on your interests/career goals. If you don't care publishing in top journals, getting a job at a well-ranked research university, etc., and are interested in philosophy/political economy kind of stuff, go with UMass. You could find a good teaching job afterward at a Liberal Arts college, or go to another heterodox school. Will you be able to take courses like this at Rutgers? http://courses.umass.edu/econ710/syllabus.pdf :tup: On the other hand, if you like MWG and SLP, want to be part of the economics mainstream, publish in Econometrica, etc., you should avoid UMass like a plague.

I don't know; it really depends on the person. An extremely motivated student will spend all their time in the office, try to make important discoveries etc, and will work much harder than in undergrad. On the other hand, an average, or below average student, can spend less time than in undergrad on their work. There is no one to watch over you; grades don't matter (as long as you pass the comps), and quality of your research, the amount of time you put in, etc. is entirely up to you. As for skipping classes, I think you can skip them all you want in grad school. I know students at Minnesota (and Berkeley) who skip classes they don't like and study the material at their own leisure. Some profs are horrible teachers and there is little to gain from attending lecture. Some lectures fall outside your interests, so there is little to gain from them, either. Most professors don't care about attendance (those that do generally don't have good lectures :)) and leave it up to the student. Here's Robert Lucas about his Chicago experience: As for social life, I don't find mind to be significantly different from what it was during undergrad. I certainly don't see many parties anymore, but I have less interest in frat parties, too :) I certainly have been attending more concerts and plays in this and last year than any other year of my life. I'm also traveling more (mostly to see my girlfriend in California, but still :)) and find time to go camping, etc. I can't say the overall quality of my life is worse now that I'm in grad school. One domain in which it is: less time for books.

OK, now I can post in this thread. Brag: Passed the micro prelim :) Beat: No results yet, but the macro prelim this year was a nightmare

I didn't sacrifice any sleep, but then again I probably failed the macro prelim. :)

I wouldn't be so sure. Abstract algebra is often considered to be the hardest undergraduate math class, and getting an A in it at a serious institution is as good a signal as it gets.

One of my recommendations came from an Abstract Algebra professor. The main reason adcoms want to see math courses is to make sure you'll be comfortable with proofs. Some theorems from analysis are used here and there, but these theorems are extremely basic (i.e. Weierstrass). If you think you'll enjoy Abstract Algebra, go for it. I wouldn't shy away from real analysis just because you think it's hard (grad micro is harder), but analysis is not required for admission. Most people in my class at Minnesota have not taken analysis before this year.

If I were to do it all over again, I'd skip math camp. I still don't understand Kuhn-Tucker conditions, and the rest of it was pretty damn useless. Really, you just need a good foundation in mathematical logic. If things like "induction" and "contrapositive" make sense to you, I wouldn't worry: the rest is just annoying algebra (sometimes really annoying).

If you count every course I've taken during college and graduate school (not just major ones), it will still be considerably less than 49...

The post he links to is even better: Paul Wilmott's Blog: Results and Ideas: Two classical putdowns I don't really have time now (micro prelim on Wednesday :(), but in short I agree with him. After a year of macro, I don't find "add more assumptions" to be a very good argument. What you start with in your models is preference relations that at least lead to utility representations, forward-looking agents etc. Complicate your assumptions all you want, but what can you buy in the real world with dynamic programming?

Someone's sarcasm detector needs to be replaced.

Freshwater: http://minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr160.pdf Saltwater: http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/1235 :hmm:

Generic economics bot response?

This is totally irrelevant, but I just went on Wisconsin's webpage and saw this: Economics 666 being offered in the Fall, hiring the lead guitarist of the Contractions... Rock on, Wisconsin. http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s38/Knikhorse/forum%20smilies/Heavymetalsmiley.gif

May I suggest looking into graduate programs in something like economic sociology? If you're already skeptical about general equilibrium kind of stuff, you might feel more comfortable someplace other than an economics department, barring the heterodox schools. It just seems to me that it would be a lot more fun to study economic sociology at Berkeley than bounded rationality at Northwestern (where you'll be forced to write tons of math proofs, suffer through a year of unrealistic macro etc). Of course, I might be totally off-base about the kind of stuff you want to do; just ignore me in this case :)

It seems like a lot of people got B's in Aldo's class. I think I screwed up the final as much as anybody else, yet still I somehow got an A. I suspect that problem sets were weighted much more heavily than exams.. If I were you, I would stop taking classes. I didn't take any graduate level courses as an undergrad and only a couple of courses per semester during my senior year. That said, I am not you and you seem to be pretty set on your choices. Have fun, I guess :)

It's San Francisco, what else do you need to know? :) If they placed people at Berkeley, that's an added plus. I'd go there in a heartbeat if that was my only funded offer.

Ah, my first acceptance :)

Nice, Minnesota gets some love outside of TestMagic :)

What a lucky dog! :)

I'd go to LSE, perhaps for unconvincing reasons. It seems that they have a pretty serious intellectual tradition (in history of thought, political economy etc), and I find that very attractive. I would also love to live in London for a couple of years (certainly seems more appealing than Evanston!). As jeeves says, the decision is completely personal.

:D Most of that is food, I'm afraid.