PhD for Economics? Should I even Consider?

[Kevin Howard]

 

 

Hi guys, so I am masters student at Social Science Division at UChicago (AKA the MAPSS) with a concentration of interdisciplinary studies. (One year research-oriented program, and a good prep for PhD). I am passionate about studying economic policies, developmental studies, game theory with a special concentration in Asian Economy (Greatly due to my undergrad background in Economics, and East Asian Studies), so likely I would like to pursue a PhD degree in either public policy or economics in the future.

 

However, my background, well, does not quite follow a somewhat typical Economics PhD student.

Don't get me wrong, I did have a very solid academic background in the sense that I went to a top 25 school for undergrad (somewhere in California), and completed a B.A in Econ and a minor in East Asian Studies with a GPA over 3.85. My GRE is at least Decent as I had a 160 V 170 Q and 4.0AWA (which I am thinking about retaking during the summer).

The thing is, as an Econ student, I basically have zero research experience, and minimal math background. I was leaning towards a career track thus spent most of the summer doing internship. Since I graduated last December, I was hired at a large insurance company as a trainee so I can payoff my grad school bills.

I was trying to graduate 3.5 years with a minor that is unrelated to Econ so I basically had to force myself to choose a B.A which gives me more electives rather than a B.S that requires more units in math. Plus the EALC Minor was particularly time consuming as it requires up to 16 courses (about the same requirement as a major). Which unfortunately means, I did not have the chance to take Linear Algebra, Real Analysis, and Matrix Multivariate.

I don't regret choosing EALC as a minor since I really enjoyed learning Japanese and exploring Japanese/Chinese culture and philosophy, but let's try to be practical here, the review committee of a top ECON PhD ain't gonna give a shit about these...

All they care about are

1). Whether you have a solid MATH background.

2). Whether you have a solid research experience (Publications too!).

3). Whether your LOR is from a Nobel Laureate.

 

During my one year at UChicago, I guess I can improve on 2), and maybe even 3) if I brown-nose my way through.

But as for getting a solid foundation of math. I mean we only get 1 year here and we need to work on our Masters Thesis, plus the quarter system means that I need to take a sequel of classes in data analysis, and two other requirement classes. Which sadly means I can only fit in 1-2 math courses (and this is me being extremely optimistic). Plus my advisor said the there are extremely strict rules for non-econ admitted students (I was admitted interdisciplinary) to take math and econ related courses at UC department of ECON or MATH. Which means, by the time I walked off from this program, I still lack the essential background of knowledge for me to even be considered a strong candidate since I lack so much of the foundation knowledge of math.

I used to think that with my credentials and hard work, I am able to easily apply to a top school and study the subject I am so craved of studying. But now, I am really depressed about it and I realized that perhaps I can never achieve that dream.

 

(Due to my financial background, applying for a second masters in Math is not an viable option for me. I can either go back to my job, which pays pretty decently, or research for a year and apply for a PhD, which likely means I wasted a year and gets 10+ rejects).

[juilletmercredi]

You don't need a second master's in math.

Even if it's difficult, is it possible? You really need undergraduate courses in math. I'm not in economics but I've heard other econ folks say that three semesters of calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, 1-2 semesters in probability and statistics, and potentially real analysis are good classes to take. (Check out this article from the American Economics Association: https://www.aeaweb.org/resources/students/grad-prep/recommended-math) How much of that do you have already? All of those courses are offered at the undergraduate level, so you don't need special admission to some gated graduate classes; you just need to be able to take the standard undergrad courses along with all the other math and quant science majors. If you haven't even started any of these, then I would imagine in a three-semester program you could at least get through 1-2 semesters of the calculus sequence. (You probably won't be able to take any graduate-level courses in economics, since it seems like those are all highly quantitative, but that's okay because what you really need now is the math.)

You can then go to work for a few years after you finish your MAPSS and take the rest of the high-level math classes you need as a non-degree student at a nearby university. With your MAPSS degree, you should be able to find work as a research associate at a think tank or government agency or somewhere else that you can continue to get research experience to build your resume.

Or, can you extend your time in the MAPSS program - maybe by going part-time - and take some more math classes? This will cost you more money, but will probably get you further ahead in the sequence. A lot of those higher-level math classes may be difficult to take in the evenings and/or weekends when you are working.

An alternative is to concentrate on PhD programs in public policy, then acquire some of the requisite knowledge in the PhD programs. PhD programs are usually more flexible than master's programs; you usually have access to pretty much any class you want to take; and as long as you have funding, you can extend your time to degree to acquire the knowledge you need (to a point). When I was in my PhD program, I took some math courses in the undergrad math department. There are also usually economists working in public policy schools/PhD programs. With your background, you'd probably be competitive for some top public policy PhD programs once you get some more research experience, and then you can sort of laterally gain as much economics knowledge as possible to do some work in that field.

However, the caveat for this is that it likely won't scratch the itch for economics fully and if you want to teach and do research in an economics department, you'll find that nearly impossible with a PhD in public policy. If you know you specifically want to be a professor of economics, you need to take the long road of taking the math classes you need. But if you just want to do research in the area and related fields are OK, then the second option may be easier and faster for you.

[ExponentialDecay]

So, the lack of linear algebra and multivariate is going to kill your application for any econ PhD (and for worthwhile public policy PhDs as well) but the good news is, you can take those at community college or online. Frankly you can't do anything statistically or mathematically until you take linal and multivariate respectively, so these classes are really important.

Aside from that, get a research assistant job at a reputed place (JPAL, the Fed, etc), work there 2 years, and provided linear algebra and multivariate, you should have a chance for an econ PhD.