Nick Hagerty's Reflections on Grad School in Economics

Nick Hagerty has put together an excellent set of slides with advice he'd give his younger self. You can download the slides here. Yes, I have blogged about many of these things before, but I think it is worthwhile for students to read these things again and again..in fact, mid-career associate professors can also use some reminding of these things every now and then. 

For students: I really like the advice of going to talk to your advisors, even when you have nothing to show them. Maybe you can talk to them (even for 5 minutes) about why you have nothing to show them. Maybe they can help you, maybe they can't. But it's absolutely true that advisors wonder (worry?) about you when they haven't seen you in a while. 

I also really like the insight of not being able to predict the research frontier. It moves way too fast! Best to just work on something that interests you. 

I'm not sure what I think about the advice of not worrying about grades. On the one hand, I absolutely agree that, all else equal, they don't matter. Summer RAships matter a lot more, for example. But I professors have some choice over who they hire, and with limited information, they are likely to prefer students who have done better in their classes. Before hiring a student who they don't know, they will ask colleagues for insider information. Conclusion: I wouldn't completely blow off classes. 

And for the mid-career professors reading this blog, the last slide is for you! It's about the achievement/status game. For easy reference, I'll copy-paste the important bits here: 

You’ve probably been playing it for a long time. When does it end? 
- Never. 
- Jobs, publications, tenure, promotion, keynote addresses, prizes... 
- It can be hard to ever feel like you “made it” because by the time you get there, you’ve already raised the bar for yourself and are now comparing yourself against an even more elite group of people

You get to choose when you cash in! 
- Other careers will pay you more to work on things you’re not excited about 
- If you want to stay, keep playing the game at least a little bit 
- But make sure you enjoy things along the way