Your life for five years

First Year

Study. The only important thing for you is to pass your comps. It doesn't matter which comps you pass, as long as you pass three (3) no later than fall of your second year. Do not worry about anything else—i.e. which fields you should take second year, or who your advisor is. Do not worry about reading papers, unless you have nothing better to do with your time. If you do your homework and understand past exams, this will be enough preparation. Study with other people. Isolating yourself generally won't give you good results unless you're truly on a level above the rest of your classmates. It's also kind of depressing.

Second Year

Take advantage of all opportunities to write papers. Writing papers is your new goal. Most fields will require you to write a paper. You may even have to write two papers. Read a lot. Go to Proseminars and Workshops. Figure out which professors will make good advisors and committee members. Talk to older students and see what they're doing. Don't get too wrapped up in homework assignments and learning everything the professors teach - you have to start figuring out your own agenda in this year and just following someone else's syllabus isn't the best way to do this.

Third Year

Relax. This may be the best year of your life. Join the GEA. Try to do some work. Acquire tools. Present your first crappy idea.

Fourth Year

Begin to get worried. You need a rough draft of your thesis by the end of the school year—not the end of the summer! Don't forget this.

Fifth Year

Freak out. Going on the job market is miserable. The job market season is not just painful, it is also very long. It really begins at the end of Spring Quater of your fourth year. At this point you will panic because you know how much you have to get done and how little time there is left. You will work all summer like an insane person trying to get it finished. Then throughout the fall you will be simultaneously trying to finish up your paper, honing your interview and presentation skills, as well as doing all the menial tasks involved in sending out job applications (licking envelopes, etc). This goes on until the AEA meeting at the beginning of January. And that's when the real torture begins.

Job Offer

Notice that the job offer doesn't restore you to equilibrium happiness. This is true if you don't get an academic offer, since you may feel depressed about this. It is also true if you do get an academic offer, because you will then be embarking on another 5-10 years of the same suffering, combined with insecurity, and pressure to publish.

 

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.