You will absolutely meet faculty and other students with similar interest. If the program and people are decent, you will have many fascinating and enlightening conversations. But these interactions will mostly be compressed into a handful of once-a-week meetings, classes, and seminars, and the occasional annual conference.
Since you’re older and have a family, you’ll probably miss out on most of the opportunities to interact with other graduate students which are after hours (and centered around free/cheap beer).
Most of the time you will be working independently. You will spend countless hours on your own, digging into the literature, analyzing data, and doing whatever experiments heterodox economists do. At the beginning ideally you’ll get more assistance, but the end goal is to learn how to do truly independent research.
And the hours really are countless. If you are extremely disciplined with your time, AND IF your research advisor is a reasonable human being, AND IF you are smart and lucky enough to make good progress right away, you could possibly get away with “only” working 50 hours/week.
Thanks. Hope it was me.
If economics departments are like other ones, a good one will make sure you have the math even if you intend to specialize in an area that doesn’t use the math. For one thing, they don’t want to graduate PhDs who are clueless about metrics. You might be asked to teach it some day. I certainly had to take lots of classes which I knew I’d never need.
Neither of your links gives me a good idea of what MMT is about. That theory X got it wrong doesn’t mean that theory Y is correct. Krugman predicted the crash - he did it in his Times column long before it happened, though he did not predict the severity of it. Taleb did also in The Black Swan - but if you understand what he is saying at all, you wouldn’t think he will present himself as a successful seer.
Anyhow, I’m glad you want to go into this with an open mind.
Anyhow, if you want to write a book, here is what you can do, which doesn’t involve going to grad school. First, know what is out there. Second, do an outline and first chapter, and run it by some people who actually know the field. Then, put together a query package and try to find an agent or publisher.
If you want to publish a novel, you have to finish it before submitting. That is not true for non-fiction books, but you need to have enough material to convince an editor that the book will be good and that you will finish it. There are plenty of resource out there about how to put together a book proposal.
Not being married and especially not having kids helps. When I was in grad school I had lots of great conversations with others in my research group. But there were some working for my professor who never showed up and probably had a horrible time. In CS back then at least there was a definite meritocracy, and people who were considered smart by the faculty and the other students had a much easier time of it. My life wasn’t hellish (until I was actually writing, that is) but this was before PCs and email, so when I went home I went home.
But a lot of the fun wouldn’t have been there if I had a family. My best memories were staying up all night helping the kids debug their programs in the days before they were due and heading down to IHOP at 2 am.
Seminars are good also. The ones I went to were great, and I think that still is true since I used to sit in on one at Stanford as an invited industry guest who asked the students hard questions.
I’m not sure if I already said this (I had several posts in a row that got ate), but yes, that is one reason I would not be looking at an orthodox school. And you said it better than I did. I’d only add that in my IMHO the econometric modeling trend has at least a little to do with the higher status of the “hard sciences” relative to mere social science.
Just to clarify, of course part of grad school is interacting and collaborating with intelligent people who are interested in the same things you are. It’s an important part. However, Linus at one point seemed to be envisioning a couple of years of sitting at the feet of the master(s) and basking in their wisdom. The reality is that the master is going to give you a bit of direction and then expect you to bugger off and figure it out.
No, seriously. I learned to hate math in HS, took my last class as a Junior (Trig/Pre-calc) and haven’t touched a math textbook since. That would have been 1988.
My undergrad school had no required courses, and they don’t teach math at law school.
A lot of that engaging with fellow grad students and professors in intellectual discourse stuff gets old after awhile. Or at least it did for me. After awhile, I couldn’t stand all the dick-waving, navel-gazing debates. Or all the wank sessions to see who can drop the most names, cite the most papers and theories, and use the most advanced vocabulary in a five minute conversation. All the insecurity…all the arrogance…all the obvious acting and pretending and performance art. It is exhausting.
Chances are you won’t get support for your ideas, at least not from your fellow graduate students, at least in the beginning. Everyone’s vying for the role of smartest guy (or girl) in the room. Every time you open up your mouth, someone’s going to challenge you. Any declarative statement, every hunch, every supposition you share…there will be some guy with a smirk on his face ready to correct you. Especially if you’re got the stink of imposter on you. Graduate students do a great job of policing their ranks. The psychological warfare is more stressful than anything else.
This isn’t a bad thing. But it’s not exactly “supportive”.
I’m 43, so I no longer qualify as a “whippersnapper”. Wish I did, though.
Debt’s not an issue. Like I said, I’m not going unless they pay me.
I’m on your side. Work’s called work for a reason. And while I don’t like my job, plenty of folks have jobs that are worse than what I do. All I have to do is look around.
Since you asked, my wife’s all in favor of it. She thinks I’ve got potential that’s unexploited, and that my job is a poor fit for me. On the other hand, she has a perfect job, for her, which she got by accident. She’s been promoted, as the company’s grown, several times, and is in line for another one.
I don’t believe in magic elixirs. I do believe, though, that the purpose of live is to maximize happiness, and that necessarily (at least sometimes) involves taking risks.
I’m not sure about the “committing” part. If I don’t like it, I can leave. It’s not slavery. My attitude is I’m there for the resources they can provide for me. Selfish, I know, but given what I know about grad school, it seems appropriate.
Well, at my workplace, we talk about each other’s cases literally every day. And about the criminal justice system generally (specifically, how much it sucks). I don’t know if that qualifies as “deep,” or maybe it’s just a bad example.
Depending on where I went, I’d be reading books written by the professors, I suspect.
If I went to UMKC, I doubt there’d be students who weren’t there to study the same thing as me. It’s called, at least by some people, the Kansas City school of economics. (A reference to the “Chicago School”, I believe.)
Not to be rude, but you didn’t have to: you chose to do so on your own.
I have. I’m not sure how much detail is needed here, but the UT program would be LBJ School of Public Policy, not the Econ department. As for the others, I’d just say that 1.) I’m already a non-traditional student. If they don’t want me, they don’t want me; 2.) I’m not convinced one or more of the schools might not take me, if they thought I was a good candidate for other reasons; and 3.) I guess if I apply and they reject me, I don’t have a decision to make. But I wasn’t really asking about how to get in, I was asking about whether it was a good decision for me.
I apologize if you feel like I’ve wasted your time.
Sure you talk about nuts and bolts and complain. But how often do you deep dive into groundbreaking ideas in law? Or spend hours untangling the philosophy of it? Maybe you guys do, but that’d be unusual.
As for interests-- yes, your peers will be in the same field as you, but you don’t just study economics. You study one particular corner, and you may not get much out of other peoples corner.
To give an example, I went into grad school wanting to pin down a particular phenomena in Zambia. My program seemed like a good fit. But when I got there, I discovered my program had a bizarre obsession with Peru. Every case study, every research opportunity, every anecdote in class, every off the cuff remark was about Peru. I read thousands of pages about Peru.
It was all useful and relevant, but it was a lot of time learning about Peru and zero time learning about Zambia I managed to wedge-- sometime awkwardly-- Zambia into my work, and I eventually wrote what I needed to write on Zambia. But it wasn’t a direct route and much of the journey down Zambia road was solo.
I’m not saying don’t go-- lord knows I did. But it’s not an intellectual paradise. It’s a grind, like any other. An occasionally very rewarding grind, but a grind none the less.
Well, I don’t know how much detail to go into about my own financial situation, or my family’s. I will say my wife can do her work wherever she wants, but that moving to Salt Lake would improve her situation, career-wise. I’ve also said I won’t go into debt, and won’t do it without at least minimal financial support. If I went to LBJ, I could probably continue doing at least a little of what I’m doing now, and without the huge overhead I’m currently paying, I’d about break even. If we did move, that would mean selling the house, which would be a huge pain, but we’d be looking at some capital gains, as well.
Not everyone agrees every Econ program involves econometrics. Ace said (paraphrasing) heterodox programs generally reject that approach. That’s consistent with what I’ve seen as well.
As far as paying the mortgage, if I can’t sell books, get a job with a foundation or think tank, work for the federal government, become a professor, do some combination of those things, or come up with another plan between now and then, I’d have to go back to doing what I’m doing now.
It is technically true that my time is my own and I set my own schedule. I could, in theory, work 9-5 every day, or even less, and have plenty of time for my children. However, the simple truth is that I can see exactly how much work I need to finish before I can graduate, and if I’d like to get my degree before I retire, I need to push myself to work many long hours.
So while people can and sometimes do play up the first aspect, it’s the second that doesn’t get as much attention, at least when you’re being recruited.
