I often say yes in threads like this, since I loved grad school. In this case I say no.
First, if you went to law school do you have the background to enter an economics PhD program? The math is really quite tough. I’m an engineer but the econometrics class my daughter took at Chicago is real daunting.
Second, I doubt getting a PhD is going to help you get your book sold. Having a position at a really good school might help, but not one in a dinky school. That said, doesn’t Wall Street suck a lot of economists out of the job market, making life much easier for the rest? Nothing is easy these days, but you’d be in better shape than if you were an English major.
But the real reason is that you seem to want to get a PhD to validate some opinions you have already, and that is not the way research works. If you go into things with an open mind, you might discover that heterodox economics is heterodox because it is bullshit. For another thing, I don’t think you can turn a guide to economics for the layman into a PhD dissertation by adding big words. PhDs are when you go very deep into a very small area - popular books are when you shallowly survey a very big area.
Not to mention I doubt you know enough at the moment to even pick a PhD topic. I was very fixated on mine, and picked it myself, but that was after doing research in the area for a couple of years.
UT Austin has an economics department. It might be worth it for you to try to talk to some faculty, or even to some grad students, for some deeper understanding of what graduate study in econ is all about.
As for your book title - does it refer to beliefs of the unwashed masses? In that case it is correct, but I bet there are already a lot of books out there on the subject. Or does it refer to the field? In that case, you got a lot of learning to do.
I agree with the general thrust of your post - no, I don’t think this is likely to be a good idea - but heterodox schools tend to be much, much different in their material than orthodox schools (of which Chicago is probably one of the best examples). One of the reasons the different heterodox schools develop is distrust of mathematical-theoretical methods of modeling human behavior.
That said, someone with three semesters of college calculus usually has the necessities for graduate econ study at your average program, although metrics tends to require a bit more on the linear algebra side. Metrics tends to be the first thing to go when schools lean heterodox (though I’m not familiar with Galbraith’s particular flavor of hetero, so this may not apply), since one of the main objections to modern economic theory is with aggregation and the philosophical underpinnings of applying statistical inference to human behavior.
Presumably the OP would pick up some useful skills that–with some savviness–he could market for a variety of positions. Governments are always having to do cost-benefit analysis, for instance. If he can’t get a job with an agency, he could always sell his services as a consultant.
People informed me that I’d never be able to find a job outside of academia or research with a Ph.D in marine biology. But they were wrong.
Thaler is in Chicago - in the business school, not the econ department to be sure. My daughter works in behavioral economics, so I’m quite aware of it. I don’t recall seeing Galbraith’s name in that area, so my interpretation of heterodox economics A quick search seems to indicate that heterodox economics is not related to behavioral economics, except loosely, perhaps.
But I take your point on the math. Thaler bragged about not being able to do the math.
Still, a PhD in any field should require you to know about the breadth of the field, not just the specialties you are interested in. My quals covered a lot of areas I’ve never looked at again, and it’s been nearly 40 years.
I cannot agree more with what PunditLisa said below about not needing to go to a university to learn. It’s actually one of the things I learned by going to grad school. At a certain point, grad school becomes less about the subject itself than a grand show of academia. That point might be different at different universities, among varying fields, different depending on your advisors/professors, and different depending on location.
However, going to a university grad program can provide you with motivation and with contacts.
I wish there were grad programs just for people that want to gain knowledge - plain and simple. Not all of us want to pretend we’re contributing something new to the field of Shakespeare literature.
Yeah, they call it “work” for a reason, whippersnapper.
Here’s what I tell my kids: Either find something that you love to do, and truly not care how much it pays, OR get a job that pays well enough that you can do what you love to do in your free time. It’s very rare to be able to do both.
What troubles me about your situation is that you seem to believe that another degree is going to be a magic elixir to your ambivalence. It’s not. You risk ending up just as frustrated, but tens of thousands of dollars more in debt.
If you just want to learn stuff that interests you, I agree that grad school is not necessary. Find some textbooks and read them, and do the problems.
Now, most people are not going to be able to put the time in doing this with a day job. The recent results for on-line classes show that lots of people drop out - which is not at all surprising.
But the most important lesson I learned in grad school is to evaluate my own work. Whenever I write a paper I have the voice of my two advisers in my ears asking me if I can show that a given statement is true. I learned to read critically.
I switched subfields after graduating so the contacts I made as a grad student weren’t all that helpful, but the methodology I learned was.
I read widely, so I pick up all sorts of knowledge. But if I don’t get published in an area I’m not an expert, let alone someone who can get a job.
Well, I don’t have a job, I’m self-employed. There’s nothing wrong with being pragmatic, but ultimately the point of it all is to be happy. If you’re not happy with where you are, what could be more pragmatic than making a change?
I agree you don’t have to go to school to learn. But I could spend hours and hours (which I don’t presently have) trying to track down the answer to an obscure but important question, or I could ask someone who already knows the answer. Which is more efficient?
I like your idea of emailing professors. I have a couple in mind. It hadn’t really occurred to me that they’d email me back. But there’s no harm in trying.
LBJ offered (last time I checked) a $1600/mo stipend. The other schools are vague, but all mention something about financial assistance. My JD cost me close to $100k, not including interest, so I’m well aware of the perils of student loans. If they didn’t pay me, I wouldn’t go.
Guess which one you’ll be spending more time doing as a grad student. Grad school is, largely, about learning how to find things out without asking someone else.
Which is what people tell you how to do in grad school - not just professors, but fellow grad students.
Not to mention you have access to a lot more literature within a department than you do on your own. Looking for papers makes you run into all kinds of paywalls.
Yeah. Married with a daughter. I’m 43. I’m old, and I’m not getting younger.
My wife can work from anywhere, though as I mentioned it’d probably be good for her career to move to Salt Lake. My daughter is about to start kindergarten in the fall. If I did it - and if we moved - it’d presumably be between kindergarten and 1st grade.
What, your experience, made it a giant fucking mistake?
Be aware that grad school is a heavy workload, and it’s based around your professor’s research interests, not your own.
My weekly reading load was a full ream of paper- and this was stuff I was expected to analyze and discuss coherently on demand, not just skim. I wedged my own research interests in where I could, mostly in papers, but it definitely wasn’t some nice leisurely time to ponder my own burning questions.
I’m doing a PhD in biology, which is a different beast than what you’re looking at - at least, I can’t say I have experience in your field - but for me, the time commitment required is rough. It’s really starting to wear on me that, more often than not, I’m getting home after the kids are in bed. On days like that, I get to see my children for a few minutes in the morning as we’re all getting ready for the day, and that’s it. I also can’t remember the last time I’ve had a whole weekend to focus on my family without at least a small pile of work to do. And then there’s the crushing poverty and headlong flight into debt…
Well, I don’t really want to work at an investment bank, or a think tank propagating false ideas. In fact I don’t want to work in the field of making rich people richer. I know there’s a lot of money in it, but it’s not what I want to do. Not that I hate money. In fact I like money. But still.
I do understand you think it’s a stupid idea though.
My idea is that I want to advocate on behalf of a theory whose recommendations - if they were acted upon on a public policy level - would improve the performance of the US economy, reduce unemployment, and help lift people out of poverty.
If this is what you want to do, I don’t think you want a school that specializes in heterodox economics. To be an effective advocate, you’d need to be extremely well-versed in traditional economics. Look at the people who’ve successfully pushed for paradigm shifts in other fields. They weren’t cranks - they were people who well understood the prior state of the art and could explain exactly where the weaknesses were. That’s absolutely necessary if you want to be taken seriously.
You can research heterodox economic theory for your dissertation (although that might throw a monkeywrench into your funding situation), but you don’t want to focus on that to the exclusion of the more accepted side of the argument.
That’s fine if it fits enough or adds to their experience. Like a math or statistics major could get into a number of science grad programs. And English major would have a hard time switching to biology. Physics, psychology, computer science can all be fluid.
Many might have minimum requirements e.g. a transcript with organic chemistry on it.
