Grad School

Economics / Grad School / Miscellaneous / Social Sciences — 2 Comments
13
May 13

Job Market Advice I: The Summer and Fall Before Going on the Job Market

[Note: I started writing this post in early April 2013, soon after going on the job market for the second time in my career and receiving four offers. Since then, I have added to this post whenever I thought of a helpful piece of job market-related advice. – MFB.]

It’s that time of the year again, when graduate students who are about to enter their final year in economics and related disciplines are getting ready to go on the job market.

Going on the job market is a harrowing experience for most people, however, so I thought I should help job-market candidates by sharing my advice.

This post is the first in a series of three. Today, I’d like to discuss what you should be doing the summer and fall before you go on the job market. The next installment will be posted in the fall and will cover ASSA interviews.

Before Interviewing at ASSA

  1. Your number one priority at this time should be finishing and polishing your job-market paper (JMP). This isn’t so much because search committees will read your JMP closely when trying to select candidates to interview but because once the academic year starts, you will realize that being on the job market is a job in and of itself. The more complete your JMP by the time the academic year starts, the less you’ll have to worry about it during the year, and the more time you’ll have to devote to other things. Perhaps more importantly, the more complete your JMP by the time the academic year starts, the more time you have to fix the potential mistakes it contains and to incorporate the comments you receive on it. Continue reading →
Grad School / Graduate School — Comments Off
09
Aug 12

“How Can I Make the Best of My Time in Grad School?”

When you first arrive, read and think widely and exhaustively for a year. Assume that everything you read is bullshit until the author manages to convince you that it isn’t. If you do not understand something, don’t feel bad — it’s not your fault, it’s the author’s. He didn’t write clearly enough.

From one of the best things I have ever read on how to behave as a graduate student, by Yale’s Stephen C. Stearns. The whole thing is written with the same mordant.

Note that the advice above need not be “when you first arrive” (in my case, the entire first year was consumed by core courses), but the sooner the better. I agree with the skeptic angle, though. The earlier you can spot weaknesses in other scholars’ arguments, the better. And lastly, I couldn’t agree more on bad writing (and I’d go even further: do not reward awful writing by citing it).

Here is a little bit more: Continue reading →

Economics / Grad School / Graduate School / Policy / Politics / Social Sciences — Comments Off
16
Jul 12

Contributing to Public Goods: “How Should a PhD Student Be?,” Part 1 (Updated)

Last week, two of my colleagues and I were invited to a professional development workshop held by the PhD students in the Sanford School of Public Policy on the topic of getting the most out of a PhD.

Specifically, the PhD students wanted to know what we had done (and when) in years 1 to 5 of our doctoral studies, and how we had navigated the process leading to our first publication.

Here are my slides for the workshop, and here is the audio, which you can also stream below. I speak from the beginning until about 16:00, when Nick Carnes takes over. Amar Hamoudi starts at around 28:00. Continue reading →

Commentary / Development / Economics / Grad School / Miscellaneous / Social Sciences — 4 Comments
24
Jan 12

Contributing to Public Goods: My 20 Rules for Refereeing

The development economics blogosphere has been abuzz with talk of refereeing lately. Here are some words of advice from Quarterly Journal of Economics editor Larry Katz in an interview with Berk Özler on the Development Impacts blog, here is David McKenzie on the same blog, and here is Chris Blattman.

I cannot possibly claim to be among the best referees, but by my count, I have refereed 56 57 papers and two book manuscripts since 2005, and I do take pride in my refereeing, which might explain why I was asked to become associate editor at the American Journal of Agricultural Economics for 2012-2015.

As such, I figured I should chime in with my own advice about how to referee papers. I cannot say I always follow every single one of the 20 rules that follow but those are, by and large, the rules I try to live by as a referee. Some of those rules are derived from a similar list by Chris Barrett, who gave the students in his graduate empirical development micro class a list of such rules.

Because the following list is highly idiosyncratic, I would be very happy to hear about your own rules in the comments. And because this is a specialized post, I’m placing the list under the fold. Continue reading →

Grad School — Comments Off
10
Mar 11

Want to Study Climate Change and Development at IDS-Sussex?

A scholarship covering tuition, cost of living, and travel is available for applicants to the M.Sc. in Climate Change and Development at the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex for next fall:

“The applicants must:

1. Be nationals of (or permanently domiciled in) a Commonwealth developing country, and not currently be living or studying in a developed country (please see the booklet for a list of eligible countries)

2. Hold a first degree at either first or upper second class level;

3. Be sufficiently fluent in English to pursue the course

4. Have not previously studied for one year or more in a developed country

5. Not be employed by a government department (for this purpose the Commission counts this as being employed by a Government Ministry).

6. Be able to confirm in writing that neither they or their families would otherwise be able to pay for the proposed course of study

7. Be willing to confirm that they will return to their home country as soon as their period of study is complete.”

This is a great opportunity to study in a place where there are many development experts.

(HT: @txtpablo)