Tom675

My point in the last post was not actually judging whether his posts were right or not --i don't agree, that's clear, but it doesn't matter for this. The point was: does any of his comments help in any way to clarify what I asked? I think the answer is clearly no. So that's why I consider him simply a forum troll. And even more --to make it clear that idc if you think I consider myself smarter than I am or not-- I'd love if I was learning other stuff in a new field, but unfortunately --for this matter at least-- the program is 90% about economics. To the point that some of my classmates complain the other way, i.e., why do we have so much econ. That's how public policy PhD's are at least in most top schools in the US, which is something that originally attracted me. So well, if I'm not learning in econ and I'm not learning new fields, that's where the problem arises... Second year may be better though. Lastly, if I dropped out it's would not just because I didn't motivate myself to make the best of this opportunity. It'd be because there's a lot of other great opportunities that you are not taking by getting into a PhD... I'd be just going after them. But I decided that I'll at least stay for the first year. There's always the option of the master as worst case scenario, or hopefully a chance to get to like this again as I used to before. Anyway, I won't be posting or checking this again. Thanks to those who made well intended comments, either those that I agreed with or not. Best!

The fact that I asked for opinions doesn't mean I'll follow what people suggests. It's just about having more inputs, but that doesn't mean I'll value them more than my own opinion. Despite that, it was indeed suggested above. Thanks for "worrying about my reputation" anyway, it's so kind of you.

Well first thanks for the post. This is clearly more useful than what forum trolls like @telkanuru have to say. I did my research about the program, read a lot online and talked to professors --from the school and from outside who knew more or less the school-- and also alumni from the program. Now that I'm inside however what they told me doesn't look like what I feel. Whatever the reason, that part is already done so I won't really complicate about it. I must say though that you are quite wrong in that interpretation of "it's public policy so it's obviously not going to be rigorous", and as usually happen you may have a misconception about how public policy is done in academia. I still believe it is more rigorous than many Econ programs anyway. And it's true. I don't know what I want to do anymore. I'll just give my thoughts some time to settle down and anyway I wasn't taking any decision right now. What I do know however is that I want to get a degree out of this, because I want a sort of international career, so I want to stay even if it's only for a master. Hopefully, I'll recover my interest in the field as I go back to doing research and if I don't, then well, there's a back-up. I'm currently working in a couple projects outside my PhD but they are research projects so not really outside academia. I can't really leave them at the time --nor I want to-- and I'm taking extra courses too, so I don't really have any time available. My original idea was to try to get into academia, but I thought this offer was better than the offers I got from Econ departments so I took it. Also, this gave me the chance to take classes and have advisors in any other department, which is still something I value from this choice. Well in summary I'll just need time to think about it. Thanks to all of you for your input! I just had one of those bad weeks when you hate everything, but hopefully things will get better. Cheers!

I'll just say I'm surprised of how much you trust in the almighty flawless admission process of grad schools. There are many other factors, but I'm not gonna share my life experience here with you lol Anyway, that's what I'm doing. I'm working in research and taking extra classes...

I don't agree that a phd in public policy is as uninformative as you say it is, but I understand that's what many people think so that's still a drawback by itself. The main reason why I thought it would be more rigorous is because it's a top 10 school, but it turns out is isn't enough. Unfortunately also I guess I agree more than I'd like to admit with your last paragraph. The degree/paper doesn't seem to have much value added by itself. And my whole comment is that it doesn't seem to have as much value added for me either. Obviously I'd learn things, the issue is whether what I'd learn is worth 5 years. To some extent, I think I just already know I should drop out but I don't want to admit so soon that the program is not a good fit for what I want (or I'm not a good fit for what they want, either way, it leads me to the same conclusion).

Well you go to a PhD for both the classes and research in my opinion, otherwise I'd have applied to Europe instead and save myself 2 years. But even if I were here only for the research, then being in a program that I don't consider rigorous enough will still be bad for job market later. You can offset part of that with a good job market paper, sure, but that will only be partial as the people hiring in the job market already have a prior idea of how alumni from each school are...

Hi everyone, I started a Phd in Public Policy this year and I feel like I don't want to continue on it anymore. I had done a master in Econ before so I knew what to expect from the courses, but the level is just not what I expected and even the classes from my master were more rigorous than what I'm doing now, so it feels like I'm not learning anything at all. On the other side, I know it may be too soon to judge the program but I don't want to spend a lot of time here if I'm not getting anything out of it later. I know I can get a masters degree if I stay two years, but I don't think a MPP would be worth 2 years, specially because I already have the master in econ (and the level of the MPP courses is even lower than my phd classes). Alternatively I could try to take a more mixed set of courses and try to get something like an MBA altogether with my phd courses so that it will work as back-up plan if I drop out later (if it's not research then I prefer private sector, that's why I prefer an mba over an mpp). Do you think that sounds like a reasonable thing to do? I know I could just switch into the mba for instance if that's what I wanted, but I have a full scholarship now which I would loose if I do it, so in any case I'd continue doing both program instead of totally switching --and I don't think I'd learn much in an mba as I did business for undergrad, but the market values it and I like the job opportunities. In a sense, I would like to keep going but only if I have a good back-up plan, but making that plan would make plan necessarily require deviating from my Phd a little, or maybe not so little... Thanks for your help! I'm just so confused now :/