ATC info

The department makes us officially "PhD candidates" the summer after the second year. UCLA economics is unusual in doing so. Most places advance students to candidacy after the third year, once they have had time to put together a decent research project. UCLA advances early for financial reasons: foreign students who have advanced can be counted as residents for tuition purposes. This means that Americans have some leeway about when to advance, but foreign students must advance on or before Aug. 31.

Early advancement creates an opportunity for you. If you can get a good project together over the summer of your second year, you can get halfway into your research.

Musical chairs

First you need to get a committee together. Who to choose? One way to feel professors out is to attend the proseminars and think about who you would get along with. Be curious; ask questions. Pay attention to gossip about who-does-what from your fellow students. Sit in on classes you're interested in even if you aren't enrolled in them.

As the 2nd year passes by, and as you read the assigned papers (you are reading them, right?), you'll get an idea of what your interests are. Then you can match them up with some likely candidates for your committee. Don't be afraid to go into their offices. They start expecting to get asked these questions in January at the earliest, July the latest. You ought to have asked at least one person to be on your committee by around May or June.

It's like a logic puzzle

There are some obscure rules dealing with the composition of your committee. The rules are summarized in UCLA's patent-pending Riley list style:

(1) Your committee must have no less than four members, though it may have more. Committee members are charged with helping you do your research and may decide when your research is good enough to deserve a PhD (this is the "defense").

(1) Your committee must have a "chair" or a formal leader. The chair can be any professor (assistant, associate or full) with an appointment in the economics department (courtesy or normal).

(c) At least two of the committee members must have tenure (associate or full professorship). Note the chair does not have to.

(5) At least three of the committee members must have appointments (normal or courtesy) in the economics department. At least one of the committee members must have no appointment with the economics department.

(vi) By petition you can put faculty from the other UCs on your committee.

Additionally, I have heard it is possible to put a professor from another school on your committee, even as its chair, though you'll have to check with the powers that be.

Throughout your degree you may shuffle people on and off your committee as long as they agree to it. This is normal and expected as your interests and projects change. It is not unusual even to change the committee chair, though this is done less often. (You may think of the chair more as a mentor and the members more as project-specific helpers.)

Oh Em Gee! What do they expect?

The ATC at UCLA is a formal occasion to present a research idea to your committee and convince them you're serious about it, or at least capable of being serious about an idea for a long period of time. They expect to see evidence you have been working, not that you are ready to publish. Due to our policy of advancing students to candidacy early in their careers, it is not expected you will present a fully formed idea. Hence the ATC itself is less strenuous than a field paper -- you're not writing an essay, just a presentation. You may even present a failed idea, as long as you explain carefully why it failed.

The presentation should be much like the proseminar talks in style and in the content, except that (again) you are not expected to have as much as they do, though you soon will be expected to.

Logistically, you need to reserve a room on the day you want to ATC. The committee will meet, and they may ask you to leave before you begin so that they can talk about you. Then you give your talk. Then they will ask you to leave (again) and chat on the inside for a while. Then your chair will open the door and usher you in, and they will tell you whether you have to ATC again in a few weeks. If your chair meets you at the door and says "Congratulations," you win. Good luck!

When the GEA's incentives Through the student's blood shall run, No power function dominates by any criterion. Does there exist an infinitum of the feeble strength of one? The GEA makes us strong.