lawrence

http://www.www.urch.com/forums/open/143595-low-econ-gpa-top-ugrad-current-research-future-math-ma-plans-phd.html#post920199 http://www.www.urch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144049 I want both of these posts need to be deleted because they reveal some personal information that I do not want revealed. I asked for this and was refused numerous times; please reconsider and delete these posts, not just move them to the members-only forum. I think I have a right to ask this even though your policy states that you don't 'normally' delete posts upon request, I think in this case, there is a conflict between the right to be forgotten and the right of the Urch forum to retain information deemed helpful for its users. The above posts are causing me occasional anxiety, worry and hopelessness because of worries of identity breach, thus affecting my physical and emotional health negatively. I urge you to strongly consider deleting both posts, especially the second one, which has no replies and thus offers no help to Urch users anyway. The first one which is in the members' forum is still not confidential as the number of members is still quite numerous. If I could, I want to ask for help from a lawyer who could advise me on whether my request could in fact be upheld by law, otherwise if the law is strict in its upholding of individual forum rules concerning post deletion and so forth, I would acquiesce. If my request can be legally made a case, then please consider deleting both posts for the sake of my rights. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION.

It seems that the best economists, like Levitt(economics w/o math), Lucas(history), Fama(Romance languages), Duflo(history), Greenspan(music), maybe, haven't taken much math before doing an economics PhD. Yet the standard advice for admissions is that unless you do a full math minor or at least a physics major, you have no shot whatsoever at top 20 programs. Why is there such a discrepancy between the training that some of the top leaders of the field received versus the requirement? And for the life of me, I can't see how a math minor can help in coursework -- it seems that coursework, including the math camp, can almost be learned from scratch, from my experience. Someone with no math in undergrad can do linear algebra, statistics, constrained optimization, and differential equations, as long as he/she can take first order conditions and then do algebra; you literally don't need to know anything else. Real analysis can help I can see that since you need mathematics to express your ideas, but from looking at the Rudin book i can't see how this is made out to be so difficult as long as you know what the symbols are saying. For me, calculating integrals ad nauseum seems much more tedious and a lot more work; proofs are just straightforward if you have can read them. Also, why should any undergrad strive to be superstars in math unless he/she is aiming for a math/physics or related degree? In terms of understanding the world, I cannot see how pure math can help. In the end, you're proving hypotheses, not mathematical formulas, for which I think philosophical logic is the most useful in terms of training. Mathematical logic is already a branch of philosophy anyway, and if you look at higher level philosophical logic they are way harder than real analysis and only dealt with in 4th year math courses or mathematics grad school.