The Office: Graduate Admission

Let's get ready to Rrrrrrumble!

I'm late in updating, I know.  I've been busy!

One of the things I wanted to mention is that next week, the Econ Department is doing a debate on the economic issues in the presidential debate, Tuerck vs Haughton.  I can't wait.  There is also the possibility that the event will be recorded, so that others can get to check it out.  I think it should be really, really good.

I continue onward with the Topics paper.  It's nearly done - I am in the editing stages, though even now I find myself adding additional data.  (Oh, I said something about concerns that the amount of land cultivated for a crop is decreasing - I should add the chart that shows it's not.  Oh, I should show that meat consumption is increasing beyond the rate of population growth, not just increasing in absolute terms.  Oh, that sentance is REALLY oddly worded.  Let me rewrite the whole paragraph.)  MUST GET PAPER DONE. 

ED headed off for points Mediterranian this week with LH.  TB gets back from her Texas adventure this weekend.  JR is back from northern New England today (she's currently off getting up to date on the new version of Office.  Even we need training to stay current with software sometimes).  It's been very, very quiet here in the Graduate Office, though my breif stint as the ranking professional staff member was short.  I suppose short but quiet is better than the alternatives. 

The PhD in Clinical Psychology application is up.  The deadline for applications is December 1.  Applicants must collect their credentials and send them in a single envelope addressed to Graduate Admission/PhD or Graduate Admission/Psychology.    December will be here before you know it!

OK.  I have profiles to work on.  Off I go!

Oh, I really need to get that done, don't I?

I officially filled out my application for graduation today. 

I'm still finishing my Topics paper (gah, Zea mays is the bane of my existence), but it should be c0mpleted in time for me to make the January graduation date.  (For those who are also finishing up their programs, the deadline for filing the application is October 1!) 

This is actually my second graduate graduation, and I should probably decide if I want to have  a party or otherwise mark it.  My MBA graduation was pretty low key - I walked for it, but it was pretty much attended by my boyfriend at the time and my next door neighbors.  The "celebration" was dinner, I think.  (I don't remember because it was all blotted out by the fact that I also discovered a raging palmetto bug infestation in my apartment that night - I was living in Los Angeles at the time )  I didn't walk in May, but I suppose a party wouldn't be a bad idea.  We'll see.

It's exciting to be at the end of this particular bit of road though.  I wonder what I'll do without paperguilt hanging over me?

Where does the time go?

I have been meaning to sit down and write for days.  Somehow, I'm only now getting around to it.  Before I start on about my own life, let me point you toward Advid Enthusiast's journal - she gives a quick report on her global seminar trip to China (including her experience of the quake).

So, as I've mentioned (repeatedly), I'm working on my paper for Topics in Economics.  Friday of last week, I had to occasion to go to the library to try to track down some of the information that wasn't available online.  I have to say, I had a great, great experience with the library staff, specifically the woman at the Reference desk.

I walked into the library armed with my printout of the volumes I needed (the IFS yearbooks for before 2000).  I inquired at the Reference desk about where I would find them - the librarian walked me over to the area and showed me the books.  Great!  We talked a little bit about what information more specifically I was looking for, and she also pointed me toward some additional volumes that could be useful, and went back to the reference desk.  She returned a few minutes later, having looked in the catalog for other volumes of similar information that could also be used as resources, and showed me where those were.  It was really, really helpful.  As I was walking out, she also showed me the Lexis-Nexis search that she had done, made sure that I knew how to use the SU access to outside databases (such as LN), and offered me some assistance in setting up a solid query to find the information.  She also suggested that if I were around another day to inquire with the librarians at the reference desk again, since they all have slightly different knowledge backgrounds, and one of the others might be able to point me to still more references.  Oh, and she also helped me out by telling me that the business branch of the BPL is, in fact, right down the street.  (I had no idea.)  WOW.

This is not my first time in the graduate degree research rodeo, but I will say I don't think I've ever had so much assistance from the library staff.  I unfortunately don't know the name of the person who worked with me for an individual shout-out.  I'm just saying, she was fantastic. 

End of the semester

My last paper (well, except for Topics) will be handed in this afternoon.  I woke up with this song in my head (thanks, George Michael!).

There and back again

Whew.  I am finally back in the office after having spent all last week unexpectedly out of town.  If all of a sudden it looks like the students blogging for us have posted a bunch - it's because I only just got around to publishing them.  Given that this is pretty much the end of classes for the Spring, I wouldn't expect to see anything new from them for a bit (though I do look forward to hearing from Advid Enthusiast and RunGirl about China - hopefully they'll post and provide some photos!). 

Sadly, since I've been out of the loop all week, I have no office news to report right this moment.  All I can tell you is that I'm up to my eyeballs in schoolwork, though yesterday I had my last. final. ever. (Well, unless I decide to go for a terminal degree at some point, but for right now, I'm going to go with "ever.")  I have one more paper left for Global Data Analysis (the country report on Russia), and then it's just the topics class.  Two months to churn out my thesis-ette, and then I'm done-done.  WHOO.

OK.  I'm going to go back to digging myself out of the mountain of email I have accumulated.

I can't contain myself

I met with my advisor for my Econ Topics class (my last class, the big burrito, the bit where I put it all together).  There are two professors teaching it this summer, and I was rather fortunate in that I was able to get in to Prof. H's class.  Prof. B is also a great person for this particular project, but I was having problems coming up with appropriate topics of research. 

Prof B is more focused on international macroeconomics and financial markets (which makes topics with her very useful in terms of turning around and working in or with a large financial firm), while Prof. H is more focused on policy and economic development.  I'm more development-oriented myself (my particular area of research preference is food and agriculture), so I think this is a better fit.

Anyway, so I met with H today, and I feel good about my topic.  I've got about two solid months to work on the paper after I get in all my finals and presentations for this semester; it will be a lot of work, but I'm excited and engaged by the topic.  To spare you the endless details (since I'll already be telling everyone I know far, far more than they ever cared to learn about the subject), I'm focusing on food prices.  There's a lot going on and the issue is reasonably complex; I think my biggest problem is going to be staying on-track and focused.  Pity me and what I suspect will be my excess of interesting data. ;)

The countdown is on and the end is in sight.  I can't imagine what I'll do with all my free time in July.  Maybe I'll be able to bring down my Netflix queue to a reasonable level and finally finish Guns, Germs and Steel, which I've been trying to read for months.  There's a lot of time between now and then to figure that out, I suppose.

Oh yeah

And I totally forgot to mention on the Econ side, I'm gearing up for my topics class (the big final class of the program).  I am casting about to find a topic at the moment.  I have too many things I want to work on. 

I did a preliminary look at sukuk (which are sharia-compliant debt instruments) and how they might differ risk-wise from conventional debt instruments, but in talking with my advisor, I am at a loss as to how to expand that very narrow line of inquiry into an appropriate topic (it's kind of a mini-thesis).  I also was considering looking at life-expectancy and capital turnover: basically positing that as people live longer, they live off their assets for longer and thus the assets turned over are smaller and they take longer to turn over.  Again, apparently too narrow (or so poorly explained that it seemed to narrow, which I acknowledge to be a problem for me).  I have to tell you, being interested in a wide and unrelated variety of topics is a problem!

Now, there's been some opening up to work with a different professor on a development-economics topic.  To use an internet-ism, *squeee*. 

This semester is winding down, and there is a tidal wave of work coming at me this month.  I cannot tell you the horror of the end of the semester - the assignments are good and useful (I am especially happy with my Global Data Analysis class, not because it's easy (because it is not), and not because there isn't a lot of work (because there is), but it's all great application of everything else learned throughout the program), but there's a lot of them coming up in a relatively short period of time.  I must remember to take a photo of the Econ Lab one of these days, to be able to show off where I spend what feels like so many of my evenings.  As I start up on my topics research and work on my end of semester assignments, I'll be spending plenty more time there in the next month.

New photos

So, I've been trying to remind myself to bring the camera with me when I go to class, because rather than going home through Park Street I walk down Cambridge Street to the MGH stop, and the view of downtown while I'm on the platform is really pretty.  Yesterday, I finally remembered.

On the other hand, I was talking with a friend who had mentioned that her sister had nearly been tossed out of the T-stop for trying to take photos from the MGH platform.  DM called me and since he was in the Cambridge area, asked if I wanted to go out for some dinner.  I had a really crappy day in class (my presentation was savaged, but mostly it was my own damn fault, which makes it worse), and I know that the drink selection at Tavern on the Square is pretty good.  It's just getting warm, the sun was setting, and there was a Chimay on the other side of the bridge for me, so I opted to skip the T and just walk.

Click below for the fruit of my labor

We've got a big map, and we know how to use it.

JR just came by my office to note that we have a Fulbright scholar applying to our MS in Economic Policy class, and the student is from Malawi. 

I think about two weeks now, we had a very large map of the world installed on the wall just outside my office.  Thus, JR and I thought for a moment about where in Africa Malawi is.  (To be fair, we were partially trying to gauge how current our map is - it does contain relatively youngish countries such as Eritrea [which admittedly, I only know anything about from my days as an archaeologist], but also seems to be missing some.)  We have a number of student in the Economics programs from West Africa - Togo, Mali, and Burkina Faso are all represented (plus I'm sure a few more - those just represent students I had class with recently), so before I took a look at the map, I erroneously thought that it was there.  (It's not, and now I know where Malawi is and am not likely to forget again.)

One of the things we were considering doing this coming year is marking the map in some way to show where our entering class of students are from.  Maybe if I get REALLY creative (and if my workload slows down), I might put up a map or something on either this site or on the SU website proper.   I think it's kind of cool to see where people are coming from.  It helps illustrate how global the education environment is; and how global you can expect the workplace to be.

Climb every mountain...

And at the moment, my homework looks like a mountain. 

Granted, it's only for one class.  And in all fairness, the load for my other class is much lighter.  And, probably most importantly, the work in class is very focused on what you'd need to do in the real world as an economist.  All in all, despite the fact that it's a massive amount of work, it's probably going to turn out to be one of the best classes I've taken.

In the meantime, though, I'm wishing I had a few more days in a week to get it all done.