Freethinker

I have this same sense that placements are expected to be better from now onwards. As Karina points out, the main changes are: 1. More funding. 2. The program is now more structured (e.g. now you're expected to do your oral at the end of the third year. Apparently this wasn't the case before and people took too long to finish because there were no requirements) As for placements this year, the ones I've heard mentioned are Chaney to Harvard and Cattaneo to Michigan. The job market wiki also mentions Manoli to UCLA, but I haven't heard of this one directly. :)

I must thank savingtheplanet writing such a flattering account of this year's visitation day. I'd also like to highlight the above paragraph because it's the best description I've seen of how the advising process works at Berkeley Econ. You are expected to come up with your own questions and only then the machine kicks into gear. Incidentally, the departmental seminar was out of the ordinary. There were more faculty members than you believe, given that I recall at least six or seven and I couldn't see the whole classroom, but that wasn't the real difference with a regular Departmental Seminar. The real difference was in current grad student attendance. Usually it's way way higher. However, it wasn't a regular seminar for the reasons Karina cited (DellaVigna had presented the papers before and he presented two as opposed to one). I went mainly because I hadn't gone to the previous presentations. Let me reminisce a little. Two years ago, for the visitation day "departmental seminar" we had a book presentation by Easterly and we were treated to an impressive Hsieh/Easterly bloodfest. After that I don't recall a single "book presentation", much less such an entertaining one...:hmm: Anyways, I'm glad you people enjoyed your time around here. I probably met at least a few of you TMers, but I have no idea who you are. Maybe I'll see you around the department in the fall. Best of luck with everything!

How about Schumpeter's History of Economic Analysis? It's a bit more reference book, but it might be useful.

This reminds me of Matthew Rabin's request to address him informally as Matt and formally as "The Great Patsy Cline"

Berkeley. Unluckily, half the department seems to be on leave right now, especially the Labor people. At least that should mean that for the rest of the PhD they'll be all here, assuming nobody poaches them.

For whatever it is worth, I am taking IO and Labor. Labor as a complement to IO is a much closer match to my research interests and I also feel that it is a much more dynamic field, at least here.

They fund PhDs, but only the first two years (as if it were a master)

In the previous post I was trying to point out two things: First, the distinction between brand-name and placement. As pointed out before, Harvard grads tend to do very well in the job market not because of the Harvard brand-name (at least not primarily) but because Harvard is widely perceived as being the strongest school, with MIT. Second, you may worry about placements while deciding where to apply and where to go after you've been admitted (I didn't). But, in Karina's case, she seems to have made up her mind already about going to Berkeley. Therefore, by now she shouldn't worry anymore about placements. If you want to go to the WB, I think Berkeley is a very good option. One of my classmates wants to work there and already got an internship this summer, so he's probably in pretty good shape. When we had a placement seminar, the professors told us that roughly a third of the class goes to government/think-tank/WB jobs. Finally, I'm fairly certain that grades and class rank DON'T matter for non-academia jobs.

Um, Berkeley not a brand name? :hmm: For academic placements, brand name doesn't really matter, but your work does. And in any case, do not worry about placements now, pretty pointless because there's no way to predict your particular outcome and hence you should just focus on doing research on what you love. This, I think, has been widely commented before. Returning to the brand names, I recall that when I was admitted to Berkeley, two non-economist elderly friends of my family called me to try convince me that I should not, under any circumstances, consider any other place. One of them (who was a policymaker in my country for a long time) was very passionate about this, and he hadn't even attended Berkeley! I found this oddly comforting... Maybe that's why I haven't had any anxieties about brand names. :D Hope this helps allay yours, Karina.

Going back to the original topic of the thread. I am a Fulbright too, and I'm confused by the mention of a "five year" requirement. My requirement is two years, which I thought was a reasonable period. Incidentally, they do finance PhDs but only the first two years (as if it were a MA). Finally, I found it rather strange that the Yale adcom considered Fulbright a bad sign, because they could simply admit the person with funding and then the person can reject the Fulbright. In borderline cases where they could be considering to admit a person without funding, then an external scholarship should be a plus... Doesn't Yale fund everybody anyways?

I'm impressed they said this. While I've noticed that the job-market paper gets more emphasis than the dissertation, I had never heard a reference to the dissertation as "obsolete". In particular, for the field of Economic History, I understand that the dissertation is still a single issue as opposed to an "essays" compilation. I recall Prof. McCloskey was especially annoyed by this tendency to write "essays" as opposed to a true dissertation.

Karina, As usual, Asquare wrote very good advice. I wouldn't go to first year courses because they are quite large -Haas and ARE students too- and not a lot of interaction going on (unless this is precisely what you want to check). If you wanted to see interaction, the best first year course was Economic History and that one is over. Seminars and field classes are probably better. That 8 prof list was crazy for me too! But in the end they will program you with about 4 of them and a current grad student. You also have lunches and dinners. Everybody (current grads and professors) tends to ask you about your interests and about where else you were admitted. By coincidence with Asquare's suggestions, last year I used an extra day to check out housing options from the University and Craigslist and snagged my current apartment! :D

Hi Pseudo-Random! From what I read, you already have the Berkeley spirit! Welcome! I do not feel comfortable arguing whether the program is more or less rigorous. My feeling from the descriptions of other places is that the material is roughly the same. What is true is that macro is not freshwater, but that actually was a plus for me. If you're interested in applied micro or metrics, then this is definitely a great place! Cheers!

This is true. Some classmates with very good math preparation are taking graduate statistics with the aim of getting a Master in Statistics. As far as I've seen, nobody is taking graduate maths courses, but there are people considering it for second year. In any case, the people who are taking extra courses usually choose them so as to advance faster, that is, they take the courses related to their future fields such as Development, Political Economy, and so forth.

The Berkeley Econ Dept. Little Big Game 2006 T-Shirts actually feature Mr.T! :)