Wednesday, May 23, 2012

"Advice for Aspiring Economists" - by a Harvard Economics Professor

From the link: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.ca/2006/05/advice-for-aspiring-economists.html

A student from abroad emails the following question:
Do you have some hints for me, how to become a good economist?
Here is some advice for, say, an undergraduate considering a career as an economist.

1. Take as many math and statistics courses as you can stomach.

2. Choose your economics courses from professors who are passionate about the field and care about teaching. Ignore the particular topics covered when choosing courses. All parts of economics can be made interesting, or deadly dull, depending on the instructor.

3. Use your summers to experience economics from different perspectives. Spend one working as a research assistant for a professor, one working in a policy job in government, and one working in the private sector.

4. Read economics for fun in your spare time. To get you started,
here is a list of recommended readings.

5. Follow economics news. The best weekly is The Economist. The best daily is the Wall Street Journal.

6. If you are at a research university, attend the economic research seminars at your school about once a week. You may not understand the discussions at first, because they may seem too technical, but you will pick up more than you know, and eventually you’ll be giving the seminar yourself.

You may find some other useful tidbits in
this paper of mine.

Updates: Here is some advice from Susan Athey about applying to grad school in economics. And here are the criteria a top economics PhD program uses in determining admissions.

8 comments:

  1. Such a great post you have shared with theirs. Gold takes after a stone which is important and particularly or roundabout impacted by the economy of the country. This http://www.personalstatementwriters.com/samples/residency-personal-statement-sample/ site is really helpful for the all level of students.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Having MBA degree is a dream and i will suggest you to have this degree because there are lot of scope in this degree which can make your career. For more info just visit that site http://www.personalstatementwritingservices.net/faq-on-the-best-personal-statement-service/ and get best online services.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The birthday is an issue for everyone and they have to applaud it immensely. Generally people deal with the event with the objective that https://www.lorservice.com/awesome-dermatology-residency-letter-of-recommendation/ collect at one place. Everyone is looking so lively at the birthday of Mindi Abair.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good post, He made such enormous numbers out of songs and performances which win the colossal prominence. Here in this site you give gratefulness one of the poems of Shakespeare and better trust it this song is so incredible.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well ofcourse readers can give opinion but you just have develop the strong relationship between you and your teacher first. Also you can click this link and get expert to help you where you needed.

    ReplyDelete