kkitkat

Question for Canadians out there. Has anyone heard back from SSHRC about the doctoral awards? They supposed to give notifications in April and it's almost over so I wonder whether they have sent out notices and I just didn't get one.

I don't have an answer for you, but I recommend you talk to your professor about it. The most useful suggestions will come from him.

You could mention it in you SOP and put it on your research contributions section if you presented anything or co-authored a paper that was presented (I don't remember if such a section exists, but if it does your conference presentations would go there). There is a way to cite conference papers, see this site for example. I don't think there is a need to prove anything beyond that. Good luck

I found this thread very useful NSF sample essays

Given your interest in Environmental and Resource Economics, I second previous advice of taking a closer look at ARE departments. Iowa State, North Carolina State, Arizona U, Michigan State come to mind (Arizona U department is relatively new, but so far they've placed all of their graduates in academia). These departments rank relatively low over all, but very good in agec and resource econ. They are also much less competitive than straight econ departments. Good luck :)

Actually this is only true for TAs. As an RA I was paid about $16 if I remember correctly.

Since I'm at the department, I suggest you also look at the agricultural econ in University of Guelph if it fits your interests. Although as far as I know most master students here see it as a terminal degree some were placed in Purdue and Berkeley (Ag. econ) for their PhDs. And as far as I know all master students got funding.

How did you get this conversion GymShorts? If 4 = 80-89 shouldn't it be equivalent to A-/ A?

Yes, it comes with the membership You can't subscribe for the journal without being a member. But it's not a big deal, membership fee for students is $32 and you add $18 for each journal. If you're not a student membership fee is a bit more expensive, but still affordable.

From their website You can apply for membership here

I would suggest going to as many seminars as possible. It's a great opportunity to find out what people are doing and how they go about doing it.

I recommend both.

Also, check whether your GDP variable in Excel is entered as numeric or text. If it is entered as text, Stata will read it as a string variable.

Well, the logic is that one should at least read the damn thing before criticizing it. The point of the paper is that although the analyzed example refers to golf, results can be generalized to a situation with competition prize and superstar, like one you may find, as someone mentioned here, in the corporate world where bonuses might be used to induce performance, but if one person keeps getting these bonuses it gives a desincentive to others to perform at their best. I don't see how one can claim that it is irrelevant and "disturbingly unimportant". I only hope that after 5 years I'll be able to produce a paper which is on one hand a fun paper to read and on the other deals with something important. Not everything important has to be dry.

I think before you reject all your current offers (some of which are quite good), you should find out why you were rejected by MIT et al and whether masters will increase your chances of admission. Talk to graduate directors, I'm sure they won't mind telling you why you were rejected and what you can do to increase your odds. On the other hand, I think your graduate experience is mostly what you make of it regardless of where you go. If you're truly passionate about doing economic research I can't imagine why would you want to put it off for a year. It's not like your current offers are all that bad :)