Thursday, October 30, 2008

Read Colander and Klamer Before Applying to Graduate School

I am amused by the thread created by this polemic, titled "What I thought a PhD was about":
When I first envitioned the dream of having a PhD one day, I had really wrong ideas about it. At first, I thought a PhD was a synonimous of erudition in economics. I believed that someone who had a PhD would have run trhough all the economic theory. But I was mistaken.

It really amaze me that it exists some people who have a PhD in economics and who have never read the wealth of Nations. Right now, a PhD in Economics looks more like an Applied Math PhD. Which is something that really annoys me.

Today, a PhD in economics is not about mastery of economic science but about mastery of statistics and mathematics, in respect to their applications to economic theory.

If I were a graduate dean, I wouldn't admit anyone without undergrad training in economics to persuit graduate studies. In my opinion the profession is too much full with frustrated mathematician and physist who, after they realized they wouldn't do anything worth in their field turned to economics to corrupt that beautiful science with their arcane mathematics.

I hate that. And I hate people who allows that..."

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