stillhopeful

I am currently in a PhD program in economics. Im beginning to question whether a PhD in econ is really what is best for me. Im considering dipping with a masters after a few more credits. Id like to consider law school, if even after a few years of work, but I have zero interest in spending any money. Whats the availability of scholarships like these days? Do law schools even offer full rides? Whats the likelihood of receiving money with the following resume: Grad: Econ (at least MS via PhD program) - 3.3/4 - 2nd tier large public Undergrad: Math and Econ - 3.3/4 - 2nd tier large public Work: GTA (in PhD program) Note: By no means am I failing out of this PhD program. Im in good standing, passed prelims, etc. Any other advice greatly appreciated. Danke.

leave the PS3 with the parents

win ...

Im looking for a good/great/the best book on the history of economic thought. Any suggestions? I see a few on Amazon (E.K. Hunt, Rothbard ... ) but its hard to trust the reviews. Thanks.

Personally I think people worry a little too much about their GPA. The feeling I got when I applied (last Spring) was that you basically needed a 3.5 to be considered/granted admission. I almost didnt even apply because of my relatively low grades (3.0 overall). I think more important than your GPA is the trend in your grades and the classes you got those grades in. I should note that my GPA over my junior and senior years was in the 3.7-3.8 range. So, while my cumulative was just barely a B average, I had a strong trend toward mostly A's in the end. I think this type of progress speaks strongly in your favor. Secondly, to be blunt, I would say a B in an advanced MATH class probably means more than an A in an ECON class. Many people will undoubtedly disagree and tell you a B is a "bad signal". Well, I disagree with them. Noones perfect, and very few dont get anything but A's. You may not be a shoe-in at Wharton, but hundreds of people get PhD's every year outside of the top 10. To wrap it all up, if I were you (which I once was), Id focus more on how your grades are progressing rather than your cumulative. Sometimes people can get a little high and mighty about needing a 4.0 and 800 and 19 years of research to even have your application read. The fact of the matter is that that represents the top hundredth of a percent. The rest of us are mere mortals with sup-perfect records. Chances are that if youre actually interested in getting into grad school you can make it happen somehow. Dont get discouraged, you cant change the past. I realize that didnt really answer your question directly, but my point is apply to schools that fit your interests, location preferences, etc. Span a wide gap of "prestige", just to hedge your bets, and im sure you wont be disappointed.

Jehle and Reny, Advanced Micro Theory. Not the be all and end all of micro texts, but i find it very useful. Its closer to MWG in treatment, but much more accessible - especially for the first year.

Couldnt agree more. My biggest issue was the use/implication of the word 'useless'. I was math way before I was econ so I get a little touchy when people start describing discrete math as useless.

And my response is the same ... never. Why would it cease to be useful to know more in any field? I understand the OP's point was that a class in number theory will have almost no bearing on economics, so maybe we can live without it. But my point is that you take away more from a math class than solely the math. Methods of proof; stupid manipulations and tricks that save us from tedious work; the ability to understand what you need to show and how you should get there; practice sitting in your room and grinding out proofs for days; the ability to understand what the math is saying ... the list goes on. And I can see how someone may brush these points aside but I still believe they are of value. So in the end, can you get through a PhD without number theory? Absolutely. Is number theory useless if your an econ PhD? Only if youre ignorant enough to think so. The second fact of the matter is that (from my limited experience) advanced econ is math supported by economics, not economics supported by math. just as an aside, these forums tend to get heated over disagreement on occasion. If any of my comments come off as abrasive I apologize. This is merely one man's opinion and in no way do i intend to attack anyone.

Right and wrong. First year PhD in econ is an onslaught of math. Very little economics. Personally, I feel students would be better off trading some econ classes for higher math classes, but Im a simple man. To the OP, asking what math you dont need for econ is like asking what supplies you dont need live. Yea, you could survive on bread and water but your life is beyond unenjoyable. Take every math class [that interests you]. Math is liberating because it establishes indisputable knowledge on which you can build. As opposed to the loose intuition most undergrad econ classes supply. I also get the feeling that math = assistantship

Yes, apply there. If he didnt think it was worth your (or their) time he would have said so. He was probably just suggesting you also look at other programs and that his 'dissertation chair' may know of good fits for you.

You shouldnt be studying for the GRE for more than maybe 10 hours? total? Maybe a little more if youre learning mad vocab. But I think its ridiculous to drop a class to study for that test. If youre already loaded and another class will make your life unbearable they dont take it on that premise, but not for one test. In the end, spending significant amounts of time on GRE's is probably one of the least productive things you could do with your time.

I have to somewhat disagree with Nanashi ("That being said only ask him for a letter if he can write specific things about you. You need 3 letters to apply to most schools. If thats your third letter then thats your third letter. Not everyone has 3 glowing letters from profs they know extremely well. I had a relatively shallow letter or two. All that means is that you didnt become close with everyone at your school. Also, I think youll be surprised by how willing even an acquainted professor will be to write a letter for you (I presume youre at least a decent student). Its part of their job to get you into grad school. Their prob not dying to write a another l.o.r. but theyd much rather send their kids to grad school than have another 10 minutes of free time this winter. ps 4 days later ... HA ... hope it helps anyway

how much math did you use in your MBA classes?

If one or two B's takes you out of the running at any particular school, you had no shot to begin with.

Im an incoming PhD student, and my department said theres going to be a math "placement" test right before classes. I assume this is just to gauge ability rather than actually place students in different classes, considering Math for Economics is a required class first semester. My question is whether or not anyone has any experience with similar circumstances regarding material, difficulty, etc. I cant imagine theyre looking for us to make considerable leaps in math over the summer, so maybe some basic linear alg/analysis? A little calc? I have a knack for asking unanswerable questions, as you may see here, but any input would be great. Thankya much.

Least favorite is a tie between calc 2 (integrals) and linear algebra. My biggest prob. w linear was the professor - decent teacher, but didnt make it easy to do well. Also, aparrently Im the only one, but I found Freidburg, Insel, Spence unbearable. Then again its the only linear book Ive read, so maybe I just find linear unbearable. Best math class Ive ever taken is easily cryptography. Not exactly standard fare, but extremely interesting and useful (in certain places). If you have 10 spare minutes sometime in your life, read about RSA encryption.

Sorry for the delayed response, this thread got buried. Yea, I used Abbot in Advanced Calc. Its easily my favorite math text, It just seems a little elementary. I really dont know what level of sophistication economics requires, but it seems like something a little deeper than Abbot would help.

How is this poor treatment? How was it handled poorly? I hate to keep making the same comment, but I feel its necessary. If you think it was handled poorly because they eventually had to cut off entering students then I think you have a very naive and idealistic view of the world. And coming from supposed future economists, nonetheless. I told myself I wasnt going to reply to this thread anymore but Im really struggling to see where youre coming from. PLEASE, fill me in. Too many unfunded offers were made = not all of the applicants can go = some of the applicants have to be told they cant go. You wanted an email detailing the fact that spaces were filling up fast? Without degrading, are you or are you not at least a 22 yr old college graduate in the top half of a percent in perceived intelligence in the world, simply by virtue of pursuing a doctoral degree? If you had to be told that the open spaces in one of the most sought after programs in the nation were filling up quickly what else should we have to inform you of? Did your college send you letters detailing how quickly the best section of math was filling up this semester? Did they have to tell you that football or basketball tickets would sell out quickly? I really do feel for you guys, it sucks to have something on your plate and watch it fall off. But thats just how things work. Maybe Pitt should just let in everyone that applies. If you look at least as good on paper as the "least qualified" applicant then by virtue Pitt should have to let you attend. In all PhD forums, economics is THE LAST place I would have expected to see people on that side of the fence. Youre cold enough to tell a nation that 100% employment isnt optimal (obviously this is debatable, but Id doubt every one of you thinks it is), but you cant take the sting of being on the other side of that comment? Id love to survey all unfunded offers at Pitt this year. How many of the ones that got a spot would tell you it was handled inappropriately? How many of those that got rescinded would tell you it was handled appropriately?

Youre right, its not an ideal example. The only ideal example is the actual scenario. Mostly because it takes into account the fact that at some point, regardless of when, the school needs to stop accepting new students. I think we can agree on that. After a certain point, its detrimental to everyone to have a larger class. We think of the school as all-mighty entities, mostly bc they control our fate, but theyre playing a similar game. They dont know how many people are going to accept their offers, so they guess and work off past results. If theyre only right on average, there are going to be times where there are more offers which offerees intend to accept than spaces in the incoming class. What should the school then do? I agree, it is slightly misleading to say you have until whenever you want to accept and make no mention of the possibility of the class closing up. But clearly their intentions werent to mislead, but to only do their job. And that job is to fill a class. And who out of all of us didnt think these [unfunded] offers implied " ... only if supplies last"? Did we think they made exactly as many unfunded offers as they intended to enroll? Did we think there was no chance of all the spots being filled before the deadline? Frankly, I dont think its their job to be in the business of hand holding, and I think sending out an email saying "hey guys, I know you havent responded but spaces are going fast and we dont want you to miss out" is doing exactly that. And even if they did do that, the same number of people would still have to be told they couldnt come. It just sounds like a better plan when Im the one who got screwed bc maybe if it happened a different way someone else would get screwed instead of me. THATS inconsiderate if you ask me. On the other hand, what if you accept an unfunded offer. Then someone makes you a funded offer and youre forced (or choose to) rescind your acceptance of the unfunded offer. Would we think twice about doing that? I bet few people would. Maybe theyd be concerned about how to word the letter, or have some fleeting sense of guilt, but I guarantee when it came time to do it they would, and theyd be smiling afterwards. Were playing a game. Sometimes you get screwed playing games, and we learn and were better people because of it. Hundreds of children will have parents who received a PhD in econ between 2014 and 2016 and saw this mess. And when theyre applying to grad school well be able to tell them, "Bro, take that offer because it might not be there forever". It sucks to be the one who learned the hard way, but shit happens. I truly feel terrible for you guys, but I doubt theres a single person here who cant make everything of themselves that they would have been at Pitt at a different school. And on top of that, it actually sounds like Pitt is making concessions to particular cases. In the end its an extremely unfortunate circumstance, nothing more. Dont hate the player, hate the game. Everything happens for a reason. F*** the p***y, give me the money and the weed.

First, I have nothing but empathy for these people. Im not completely heartless yet. Its terrible, plain and simple. But that fact doesnt befall wrongdoing on the department. I think youre deceiving yourself by stepping over several boundaries, none of which have been well defined. An offer of admission in no way constitutes a verbal agreement. It constitutes an offer. As in, " ... you could take this if youd like". Nothing has been guaranteed. There was no decision. This is someone sending you a contract and asking "would you like to sign?". Once you make a decision it becomes an agreement. The fact that you have not accepted is, by definition, a lack of agreement. If I offered you a dollar, and you tell me youre gonna think about it, clearly we have not agreed on the matter. As this is MY offer, by nature I may renege at any point in time. If you accept AND THEN I attempt to reneg I am at fault, and may be held liable (this point may directly motivate their sending this letter to all remaining offers). But if you had not decided, and made that decision public by the time I renege, then there exists no offer. There is no court system in this country (I assume you reference a U.S. state) that would award you damages due to your choice to not accept an offer. If this was the case, people would simply claim agreement, after the fact, to any offer and be awarded its value (and then some, you claim) without ever entering into any actual contract. People would claim they want the price offered for some item a year ago at a sale. Since they were once offered that price, they can redeem that offer at any point in time. And when denied, theyre going to a civil suit over the difference? And damages based on 'distress and expected losses' as a result of not purchasing the item? Thats just silly. The clear fact that you miss is that there was an offer on the table for them to rescind. If its there to rescind, how can there be agreement? As far as I know, no one was told they would not be allowed to enter AFTER they told the university they intended to do so. Ill mention again, the fact that the university was proactive as they were in letting students know that the offer no longer stood, in a way, shows that they were aware of this issue.

haha, touche my good man. The last sentence or two was supposed to be half joke, half the implications that unfunded students in good standing will receive some semblance of funding starting in year 2. But dont banks overextend themselves by definition? Id say it was more a matter of where the extension took place.

Again, I disagree. How is the department at fault? Yes, they didnt give a deadline. But in no way does a lack of deadline obligate them to create a spot for you when the mood moves you to make a decision. Lets say I tell you Ill give you a dollar. You can take it or not, and you dont have to decide until the heat death of the universe. You wait for a couple weeks and come to me and say "Ill take that dollar". Unfortunately I made that offer to 100 people, and 50 of them asked for the dollar immediately. Not only do I have no money to give you, but there are 49 people who told me that if I dont give them each a dollar next year theyre gonna break my legs.

I got the same email. I dont know why you think this is illegal. They run a business. They made an offer. You didnt take the offer. Now its off the table. As far as unfair goes, I cant agree with that either. Any system has a capacity. It would be unfair to take everyone that wanted to attend and then in three years tell you there are no advisors available to chair your thesis. Further, theyd have to make it clear that no funding will likely EVER be available. With that said, I have the greatest of sympathies for you. One small step in a different direction and I would have been in your shoes, and equally upset with this. I truly hope each of you gets what you want and deserve. My advice for the future comes via the two most intelligent, even-minded people I know - Its an unfunded offer, hence no obligations. Take it now, and decline later if need be.

I dont know what you mean by calc 2. Integrals or multivariable? (I never really caught on to the numbering system) Im pretty sure calc 2 = integrals. I hated my integrals class. Its simply not fun to integrate sloppy functions. I got a C in it. Once you get to multivariable(calc 3?) and/or vector calc, those unnecessarily nasty functions dont pop up [as much], and you get to focus on the concepts. Advanced calc/Real analysis might be the furthest possible thing from calc 2. Its more about the foundations of the math than actually integrating some absurd function. What Im trying to say is that calc 2 isnt the end of the line. And the line changes a lot after calc 2. Again, ODE's are an entirely different game in themselves. Yea, youll have to integrate, but not sin^8*cos^6, or any of the other obscene nonsense you see in calc 2. Yea, it blows to get C's, but in no way should you be overly concerned about the implications of a C. Its easy to get jaded perusing TM that much when you see people who [claim] to never get anything lower than an A in any class. Thats great if they didnt, but Id venture that the overwhelming majority of PhDs, in any field, managed to get a few low[er] grades here and there. Youre simply not expected to have a 4.0. With the underachiever in me out of the way, its much more important how you bounce back from bad grades than the grades themselves. I had a 1.6 my first semester of college. An F and 4 C's, one of which was calc 2. My girlfriend laughed in my face. Well, really behind my back, but I was crazy enough to break into her facebook and the fact that I saw it kinda made it to my face. But I digress. I managed to rock the next couple years and a lot of it was motivated by that first semester. So try not to get too distraught over it. You have several years to make up for a few bad grades, and if you want it badly enough, they wont keep you out of grad school. If you want the truth, from my experience, the fact that youre taking so much math (clearly a math major ... ?) will do a lot more for you than a couple C's wont. I bet schools would rather see 15 math classes with a 3.0 (in math) than 5 math classes with a 4.0 (in math). Im not exactly qualified to say that, and obviously preferences vary, but thats the feeling Ive gotten from the process. Im going to stop running my mouth now, but take two things from this - first, you have the only three purely enjoyable years of your life left in front of you, dont waste them upset over one, two even four C's. At the same time, you might want to get two, four or even eight A's just for good measure. Secondly, never leave a paper trail.

I got a letter from my department suggesting I brush up on math over the summer. I grabbed Simon and Blume from my library, it seems like a comprehensive reference but im looking to step up my analysis and linear algebra game. I used Freidberg, Insel, Spence for undergrad linear and found it ... uninspiring. My analysis book, while enjoyable, was limited (I took "advanced calc" not "real analysis"). Can anyone make any recommendations on a text for each of these areas? Someone mentioned Pugh's Analysis, anyone read it? Thanks in advance.