PRE Workshop 2026 Recordings

Stephen Lamb (00:02):
And as we start this conversation about applying to pre-doc roles, I'll ask each of our panelists to introduce themselves. Rebecca and Jonathan, why don't the two of you get started?

Rebecca Toseland (00:16):
Very happy to. Hey everyone, nice to see you all. I'm Rebecca Toseland. I'm a senior lecturer in the economics department here at Yale University, and I direct the Tobin Center/Economics Predoctoral Fellowship Program, which is now in its eighth year.

Jonathan Dingel (00:35):
Hi everyone. Good to see you. I'm Jonathan Dingle. I'm an associate professor of economics at Columbia University. I've hired, I don't know, probably two dozen pre-docs over the last decade or so, so I'm here to share my experience from the sort of faculty hiring side of things.

Stephen Lamb (00:53):
And as Jonathan said, that is one side of the panel that we'll be asking questions of, the people who actually do the hiring, but then we also have two people who have gone through the hiring process themselves. Yvan and Anna, if you'd like to introduce yourselves.

Anna Volpp (01:10):
Awesome. I can start. Hi, everyone. My name's Anna Volpp. I am currently a second year pre-doc at Chicago Booth, so happy to answer any questions related to the application process.

Yvan N'Guettia (01:22):
Good evening. Nice to meet you everyone. My name is Yvan. I'm a recent graduate of Macalaster College and I'm a current pre-doc with Pasqueline Dupas at Princeton and J-PAL Africa. And I'm in my freshman first year. Happy to answer any question now.

Stephen Lamb (01:38):
Thank you all. So as we get started, I think it's going to be most effective. I'll first concentrate on the people doing the hiring. So Rebecca and Jonathan will have a few questions for you, then I'll transition to Yvan and Anna for a few questions for you. And then I think we'll have some questions that are going to be common to the group that I'll be interested to hear your perspective in. So to start with Rebecca and Jonathan, very generally just to start, what is it that you look for when you're trying to identify someone who'll be successful as a pre-doc?

Jonathan Dingel (02:07):
Rebecca, do you want to go first?

Rebecca Toseland (02:09):
Sure, happy to. Well, first of all, I just want to say that mercifully, I do not do the hiring. What I do in our program, maybe this will just pull back the curtain also on our particular program is, so we have a common application, so I do facilitate that. But from the point that you apply to our pre-doc program, we have a decentralized recruitment process from that stage. So the faculty whose projects you're applying to or positions you're applying to are going to review your application materials and decide whether to move you forward in their process, and they have different processes. But I would say many faculty, the first step would be to send you a data task, and if you perform well on that, they will invite you for an interview. And if that goes well, they'll usually check your references and then decide whether or not to make you an offer.

(03:07):
And I think we have in our pre-doc program, we have economists working in all sorts of fields. We also have political scientists, we have sociologists, we have faculty in the school of management, which is our business school in other fields besides economics, including finance and accounting. And so this is all to say faculty are going to be looking for some different things based on the sort of candidate they're hoping to recruit and invest in and also the nature of their projects. But I would say in general, some common things that many faculty are looking for are they're going to be looking that you have enough prior coursework relevant to an economics PhD or to the type of PhD that you're ultimately planning to apply to so that they can help you close any remaining gaps within the first year and a half of the program, anticipating that you would apply to PhD programs in your second year, in the fall of your second year of the program.

(04:18):
We also, and I think many pre-docs are this way, occasionally have pre-docs come in that will apply immediately in their first year as that might happen as well. But for the most part, they're going to be looking at the minimum that you have enough coursework so that any remaining gaps can be filled. So a typical pre-doc in our program might have taken math through linear algebra and they maybe need to take real analysis when they're here. Sometimes we have pre-docs that need to do more coursework. So I just want to say also don't be deterred if you don't have all the coursework that you need, but do try if you have the opportunity to get as much coursework in before you get to a pre-doc. Most faculty are going to be looking for coding and/or econometrics or statistic knowledge that is at least somewhat aligned with the skills that they're going to need for their projects.

(05:09):
This is not strictly required, but it is very helpful if you have some prior research experience, whether that's being a research assistant for a faculty member or engaging in a thesis, an undergraduate or master's level thesis, to be able to show the faculty that you have some demonstrated interest in research. Also, to be able to show that you have a genuine interest in the potential of pursuing a PhD, that's very helpful even if you're not 100% sure, because in general, the purpose of the pre-doc is to help prepare you for a PhD. So the faculty are going to want to know that being in the program is going to be high value add to you. And then strong organizational skills, attention to detail, willingness to learn, just initiative, ability to work independently, but also collaboratively. I think those are typical things. And then finally, I wrote this in my notes.

(06:05):
I actually wrote in my notes, not a jerk. I think in general, to be someone who demonstrate that you're someone who is going to be excited to be in the program and is going to be a good peer to your peers and also just a great person to work with for the faculty supervisor.

Jonathan Dingel (06:28):
I'll echo a lot of what Rebecca said. So the first thing is that economists are quite varied, which means that what they're looking for in terms of skills in a pre-doc RA can be pretty varied. And that's in two dimensions. One is economists are varied in the topics that they work on, and they're varied in terms of the kinds of skills or tools that they're looking to apply to answer those research questions. And so most schools--I've hired at Columbia, I've hired at Chicago Booth in the past--are running a decentralized process. And so you should think of this as a matching market in the sense of you're looking for a good match in terms of that faculty supervisor lining up with what you want. So I can speak to my particular taste of what I'm looking for in an applicant, but it's very clear that different economists run their research teams and processes in different ways.

(07:19):
One that's probably common to everybody is you would want to have a demonstrated ability to work hard and learn quickly. When we hire somebody at the start of a two-year gig, we don't expect you to know everything. You're going to be learning a ton, and oftentimes it's by being thrown into the deep end of the pool. And so with that steep learning curve, I sort of know that the RA is going to be making a bunch of investments in their first semester. And then I want in semesters two, three, and four that they've skilled up and know exactly my research process and become a valuable asset in terms of contributing to my research outputs later down the line. And so anything you can do to demonstrate in the past that you've been put in a position where you have a bunch of autonomy and had to navigate and put in the hours in order to learn a bunch of new technical skills and navigate working in a team environment to that kind of stuff, that's all very valuable in terms of when you join a pre-doc, I don't expect you to know all the economics already.

(08:23):
I just want some ability to forecast that you're going to be able to absorb a ton of information that we're going to be throwing at you. And so one thing that's useful to signal in your application is does the applicant know what they're getting into? So for the process, workshops like this are probably helpful in terms of orienting you to how this stuff works. But for economics research, some prior RA experience or a senior thesis or something just to show that you have an idea of what economics research looks like so that you can forecast reasonably what this job is going to be like over the next two years. And then as Rebecca was talking about at the end of the two years, there's kind of an expectation that the typical pre-doc will want to go on to a PhD. And so is it plausible that you'll be a strong PhD applicant in your second year?

(09:12):
And the profile of what makes somebody a very valuable member of the research team is a pre-doc RA and a strong PhD applicant. Those things are not perfectly correlated. I'm also the director of PhD admissions at Columbia, so I've thought about both of these types of things, but they're reasonably well correlated. So somebody when they're looking to hire a pre-doc probably also cares about their placement record in terms of those pre-docs moving on to PhD programs afterwards.

Stephen Lamb (09:38):
So you've identified a good number of different qualities, experiences, et cetera, that you would like for these applicants to have in order to be competitive. When you're actually reviewing the materials that they've submitted, are there ways that they can be particularly clear or compelling when they talk about those experiences? Or maybe on the other hand, have you seen patterns of mistakes of what people have done when they've put together a cover letter or a CV resume they would want people to be aware of and avoid as they're applying to these roles?

Rebecca Toseland (10:08):
Jonathan, why don't you take this first?

Jonathan Dingel (10:12):
So what comes out of the decentralized process is faculty are evaluating lots of applicants. And so if the hiring process asks you to fill out a custom form, make sure that you can cram all the information into that common format because it's very likely that faculty are looking at a spreadsheet or something where they've got 200 or whatever candidates and they're looking at summary kind of pieces of information to make comparisons across people. So I know the application process has varied across institutions, but when institutions are asking you to fill out a Google survey form or something, make sure that you put your best foot forward in terms of putting the key pieces of information into that. Because to be sympathetic to the faculty side, evaluating hundreds of applicants is a hard cognitive task and we're trying to do it quickly. So make sure you represent yourself well in terms of taking the application packet that you've prepared and reshaping it into whatever the custom format that Yale or Columbia or whatever school is asking you to fill out.

(11:17):
In academia, one-page or two-page CV is usually supposed to be the best summary of somebody. So make sure that you tell me your GPA, your coursework, your research experience, and so forth.

(11:28):
In terms of the application materials, this might be a little bit idiosyncratic, but I love seeing a GitHub repository so that I have some evidence of coding experience so that I can actually go look at your code. And as I said earlier, it's a matching market, so see if you can horizontally differentiate yourself. The other stuff I was describing, like work hard, learn quickly, have a bunch of good coursework, those are sort of vertical characteristics where everybody likes somebody that is smarter and works harder, but it's also a matching market on what kind of stuff are you interested in. So see if you can horizontally differentiate yourself. I'm a software geek, and so when I'm quickly skimming applications, I tend to notice people who have listed specific programming language or software tools that I'm interested in. The one thing to warn you is, of course, if that's the thing that attracts my attention on paper, then when I interview you, I'm going to say, "Oh, you used Julia.

(12:21):
Tell me about what project you used the Julia programming language in." And so it would be a mistake to bluff if you say, well, in many interviews, people say, "Well, I used it one time in a class. I opened up the software, and so that's why it's on my CV." So that got my attention, but it doesn't get you terribly far once I'm quizzing you on it in the interview. So in terms of mistakes or where things can go wrong, I think on paper it's mostly about getting somebody's attention and showing your upside potential. I think the interviews are maybe where I see mistakes happen most often. And if you think about it from the faculty side, faculty doing a bunch of interviews back to back. And so it's going to be 20 minutes or something relatively short. And so there's just a really high return to answering questions clearly and demonstrating how you'd operate in a research team meeting.

(13:20):
Because basically a short interview is similar to how it's going to be if you're on a research team with two or three principal investigators and two or three RAs. We want someone that clearly puts the bottom line upfront and then explains their reasoning and doesn't go down rabbit holes or get distracted or whatever. So it's basically a practice team meeting, except the subject of the meeting is presenting yourself. And so you should think of it as a research team meeting in the sense of if the interviewer asks a question and the question doesn't make any sense, you shouldn't pretend you understand and try to fake your way through it. You should say, "What do you mean by X?" And clarify. It's the same way that you would if you were trying to do research with this person, which is if they ask a muddled question, you would want to straighten it out, not ramble on for a long time after you've misinterpreted the question.

(14:11):
So I think communication skills really show up in the interview stage. And maybe that's one where just the first interview, you're going to be a little bit nervous and it's going to be a little bit rough. And so doing practice interviews with a pre-doc that's a year ahead of you that's already done one of these would probably be tremendously helpful. I think it's the interview where people that I think look great on paper tend to surprise me sometimes. And a common interview question I have is I say, pick the most challenging technical problem that you've solved in either RA experience or your senior thesis or whatever, and tell me why this is an impressive highlight. And one mistake that people seem to make is they sometimes interpret it as, tell me about the thing that took the most work. But of course, I want to hire someone that doesn't do a lot of work.

(15:00):
They magically solve problems with a really smart, clever solution that doesn't take a ton of effort. So you want to, when picking your examples, use examples of clever problem solving, not the highest effort or the thing that took you a ton of time or a bunch of manual labor in order to solve problems. And so when you're in these interviews and somebody says, tell me about the research you've done, you should be prepared to describe not only what you did in your RA job, but how that contributed to the bigger project that the professor that you were working for. We want you to both know coding stuff, but also know the economics, understand the research question, and say how you helped answer that interesting research question about the world. So yeah, that's my advice on the interview stage. That seems to be where there's just massive heterogeneity in terms of how it goes.

Rebecca Toseland (15:56):
That's great. Yeah, I don't have very much to add to what you said, Jonathan. I think I would just emphasize that in, as you said, in the initial application, I mean, I think that is a great time to showcase your clarity of communication in writing and the interview is a great way to do that verbally. And in general, I think faculty are looking for someone who they're really excited to train for the next year to two years to then help them, their educational and professional trajectory into the profession. And so that's what you want to ideally present to the faculty member, that you're going to be a productive pre-doc for them, you're going to be eager to learn, and you're someone that they're going to be excited to invest in. The other thing I would say is I would really encourage you all to apply widely.

(16:55):
One, because pre-doc programs or predoc positions are just competitive. There are lots of applicants, but also I think sometimes it's hard to know upfront whether the match is going to be good or not. So just applying widely to positions I think gives you the best chance to find a match that's going to work well for you and for the faculty member who's going to be hiring you. Also, you might surprise yourself. You might think you might be really interested in labor, but end up applying to a position that's more focused on development. And you might find a field that you didn't necessarily think was your top field of interest, but develop an interest in that during your pre-doc program or vice versa. Go into a job because you have some interest in it, but you're not sure. And you might realize during the pre-doc, this is great, but I'm actually going to go in a different direction.

(17:49):
We see that I think all the time.

Stephen Lamb (17:53):
Before I switch over to Yvan and Anna, I want to ask about the data task. And in particular, whatever advice you have on the data task would I'm sure be useful. But in particular, I've been getting a lot of questions the past couple years about how the advent of generative AI tools have affected the data tasks that are sent out and how those data tasks are assessed. Do you have any recommendations in particular about how people should or shouldn't use generative AI tools when completing these tasks and maybe how they should document their work so it's clear what they're doing themselves and what they're using the tools for?

Jonathan Dingel (18:27):
So this was easier last year, I think, because I still had a data task question that AI would get wrong. AI will get the first four parts wrong and then it would make the wrong choice about the fixed effects and a regression that I had them doing in the fifth part. I'm not so sure that AI would get that fifth part wrong if it was this year. And so in some sense, look, if they let you use AI in the data task, you should definitely do it. It raises the value of your output, it saves time, et cetera. Economists are definitely using AI in their own research. And when I hire a pre-doc when they start working for me, I definitely expect them to be using AI. So my position when sending out the data task was tell me how you used AI when completing it in the sense of what was AI good at?

(19:15):
Did the LLM get anything wrong? How did you have to steer it? So I, at least in last hiring cycle, was taking it as I expect it to be incorporated into the production function, and I would appreciate you sharing how you used it in that sense. But I think it means that unless you can prove that you're really good at prompt engineering or something, if AI is writing more code, what it probably does is raise the return to the softer skills that we've been talking about in terms of clear communication and understanding the economics and making sure you're making good decisions at the top before you dive into cranking out 300 lines of R code or something. Those skills are now more valuable to the extent that they compliment prompting the LLM to write a bunch of code. So of course you need to follow the instructions.

(20:06):
It may be that other faculty might have a different view and say that you're not supposed to use LLMs in order to complete their data tasks. So in some sense, you just have to follow the instructions that you're given. But I think the right way to play this is to recognize the huge role that AI has taken up in economics research and expect people to be using it even at the application stage.

Stephen Lamb (20:34):
Rebecca, anything to add to that?

Anna Volpp (20:37):
Nope.

Stephen Lamb (20:38):
Okay. Then let me transfer our conversation over to Yvan and Anna for at least a few moments. We've been talking a lot about how to apply to these roles, but since the two of you had to make this decision, I want to first ask you, why did you decide to apply to this particular pathway toward a PhD? Because there are, as we talked about in the first half hour of this workshop, multiple pathways. So why was it that the pre-doc route was the one you wanted to take?

Yvan N'Guettia (21:09):
I can start. Can everyone hear me?

Stephen Lamb (21:12):
Yep, you're good.

Yvan N'Guettia (21:14):
All right, perfect. For me, since sophomore year, I was already set on the PhD track. I loved econ my freshman year and I wanted to dive deeper. And hopefully I was early-on informed of the different pathway you have to take to what the PhD program. There was the termination degree pathway guided math and then going to PhD. And there was a pre-doc pathway where you get to work for a professor and get to engage in more content, more learning, more economic theory, more field work if it applies to your field. And for me, the one that looked more, I would say rewarding toward the career path that I wanted to take as an economist was the pre-doc path, mainly because in addition to complementing my knowledge that I created across my four years in college, I had opportunity to also go on to the field and learn practical ways of actually diving into a question.

(22:07):
I didn't want to be an environment where I was still taking classes or be stuck in a place and only having to rely on the internet to learn some stuff. I wanted to be on a pathway where I could both learn inside the classroom, but also an opportunity to go outside the classroom. And among all the pathway that opened to me, the pre-doc one was the one way I could actually get both of those advantages.

Anna Volpp (22:32):
Yeah, I think in my case, I didn't fully know what I wanted to do. I was interested in the idea of potentially pursuing a PhD in economics or some related field, but I wasn't totally sure. And I think the pre-doc has provided me the opportunity to explore that. I think that, well, I was able to pursue a more independent project with my thesis in undergrad. So I wanted to get more exposure to all the different components of research that you can really see when you delve into a pre-doc because you work pretty closely with a professor. And so I think that was really important to me. I think one thing Stephen likes to say is that money flows in the opposite direction in a master's versus a pre-doc. So if you are employed as a pre-doc and it's a source of income, whereas a master's you have to pay a fair amount of money.

(23:17):
So I think that is also an important component. I didn't go straight to a PhD, as I said before, because I wasn't fully sure that's what I wanted to do. But I think that the pre-doc experience and understanding all aspects of the research experience have definitely helped to inform that decision.

Stephen Lamb (23:35):
And on a pretty basic tactical level, when you were in the position of applying to these roles, you had to find them and then you had to decide, I think you were both still students at the time that you were applying, you were having to balance your applications against classes and midterms and all those other sorts of things. How did you find the roles? And then how did you decide how many to apply to and which ones to apply to?

Anna Volpp (24:02):
I can start. I think my case was a little bit different. I wasn't sure I wanted to do a pre-doc, so I applied to a bunch of potential gap year experiences, including a pre-doc and including other things. Because I wasn't a hundred percent sure I wanted to do a pre-doc, I didn't apply to as many places as other people. I would say I applied to maybe five or so. Other people apply to 20 plus, so it's really quite a range. And I found those places mainly, I believe, on predoc.org. So the resources that you guys know about now. And then I think just asking professors at my university if they've heard of good pre-doc experiences and just trying to get a sense of who are good mentors to work with, stuff like that. I think the other thing is I tried to make it somewhat topically relevant to my interest.

(24:51):
So I also filtered a lot of the research opportunities on pre-doc.org to things I might be more interested in. And so I think both those approaches worked well.

Yvan N'Guettia (25:08):
For me, again, I think kind of a similar experience, except I started knowing exactly what I wanted to do after I graduated. So I, again, rely on the same resources as Anna did. Predoc.org was very, very helpful. And there's an actual opportunity to even filter by the specific field that topic you're interested in. So I use that feature a lot. But most importantly, before even choosing where to apply or what to actually dedicate time and earning on applications, I first decided to filter by professors. There was a lot of feedback that I received from past pre-docs and from my professors as well, were telling me that it doesn't really matter what topic you're interested in as long as your professor can actually invest time and energy with you. So even before going on the predoc website, I actually had to go through what actually value in a professor, potential value in an institution, and what type of places already exist that has been providing that to that student across many years.

(26:07):
So I selected on already established pre-doc programs that have been there at least for quite a while, at least two or three years or even more. I tended to put the new pre-doc programs or new pre-doc programs in the lower bottom of my list. And then when I narrowed down that list, I went then on to look at the topic, the research, the professors, and then what had the pre-doc at my school have done and what feedback they have. And based on all those data and the advice of my professor, I was able to draw up a list on identifying things to tie and ranking on which one I should have committed more of my time and energy to and which one I should maybe wait a bit toward the end.

Stephen Lamb (26:51):
And then whether this was you considering multiple pre-doc offers or you considering a pre-doc offer and maybe other outside opportunities that you were thinking about at that time, how is it that you came to the decision of the offer that you ultimately selected?

Anna Volpp (27:11):
I think on my end, the professors that I'm working for now did it pretty strategically. They gave an offer early with a deadline that wasn't that much after. And so I had to either accept it or take the risk that I maybe could get into another program, but it wasn't for sure. And so I think given that, I spent a lot of time researching the program that I had gotten accepted to first. In particular, talking to the alumni of the program, understanding the role of the professor, both as a mentor and just as someone to teach you a lot about research. So I think talking to previous people in a role is very important. And I would assume that most people, if you get accepted into a program, will give you that contact information. And then I think asking around just more broadly to understand the pros and cons of different pre-doc opportunities or different research experiences.

(28:11):
But I think in my case, I was given a really good offer, and so I didn't want to risk losing it for something else, so that's why I chose it.

Yvan N'Guettia (28:22):
My experience was a bit different. Instead of receiving one would offer for a deadline, I received multiple offers at the same time. And each one of those offers knew that competition's happening at the same time. So each one of them were actually giving some advantages about if you go here, we give you this, you go there, we give you that. And it was kind of a tricky choice to make for me because all those programs were like a part where places I actually wanted to go. All they were like, wait, what do you feel as top choices? They met my requirements in terms of topic. The person was very nice and they tend to invest a lot of time and energy into developing the pre-doc. They had very good placements. So it made things very hard to choose. But ultimately what Anna has said and what other professors also said was very important, talking to previous pre-docs, talking to professors at your school, and specifically actually even feeling free to ask the professors themselves for a second meeting after the interview to discuss more in depth what set the program apart from others.

(29:22):
That's something I've done. I asked each one of those institutions to give me more time to consider other offers, but also set up time for me to talk with them further beyond just the interview process to learn more about their research, learn more about the institutions, learn more about how they will support me in the two years I want to spend with them. And I did those small interviews like the institutions, and I found out that what seemed to be on edge to one institution actually stood apart from others and that were willing to give me more than what other institutions were able to provide. And that's how I made the decisions. So I think the one thing that's underused by pre-docs when they applied is that opportunity to not only rely on the offers letter that you receive or not rely on what you read on the internet, but having the courage to actually ask those people, "Hey, these are my worries and these are what I'm having right now, and I want you to tell me what sets me apart." Because in the interview they ask us what set us apart.

(30:20):
So when you get the offers, I would tend to ask them what set them apart. And they tend to also provide us with enough information, there's private programs in such a way that actually convince you to join you. And if they at the end of the day cannot convince you to join the program, then I think you know that what the right to say to me.

Stephen Lamb (30:38):
And then a few questions that I have for the whole panel, not that everyone has to answer each question if there's commonly felt sentiments. But I'm curious, one of the questions that I often get is when people are applying to these pre-doc roles, it's because they already have some interest in quantitative social science research and they may have a particular topic that they're interested, they're more interested in development than macro as an example. And they may be uncertain, should they only be applying to those development positions? Should they be applying more broadly? What heuristic would they use in order to determine how closely to fit the positions they apply to their current interests? Can you give any guidance to that decision?

Jonathan Dingel (31:21):
I think this is a case where you should apply broadly and then see what choice set you get, and then you can weigh these trade-offs. When I talk to people that are entering PhD programs, people think they know what they want to write their job market paper about, and then they're forced to take the core. So if you say like, "Oh, I want to do development, not macro." Well, if your plans to do a PhD, you're going to have to get through first year macro eventually. So a little exposure isn't the worst thing in the world. And the other thing is that lots of tools in economics are common across topics. So the fact that you might be interested in health economics, doing development work or urban economics or other subjects can still be relevant to turning you into the economist that you want to be working on a particular topic.

(32:08):
But I think it would be a mistake to select only on one, unless you have lexicographic preferences, you shouldn't pick one criteria and use that to narrow your applications. You should apply broadly and then decide the weights you have on these different characteristics of different jobs. As Yvan was just saying, imagine that you can have a terrible boss who works exactly on the topic you care about or someone that's going to nurture and mentor you, but isn't exactly in the field you're interested in. I think you should probably take that second job. So I would just apply broadly and then worry about this after you've got some offers in hand.

Anna Volpp (32:48):
And just - Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Rebecca Toseland (32:50):
No, go ahead, Anna.

Anna Volpp (32:51):
Okay. I was just going to say, just to echo that from an N of one perspective, I am currently pursuing a pre-doc in household finance, labor, but my main interests are in health and public economics, and I don't regret my decision at all. As Professor Dingle said, I've learned a lot of skills and tools that I could apply to really any research topic I'm interested in.

Rebecca Toseland (33:15):
Yeah, I totally agree with what Jonathan and Anna have said. I think when you get to the point of making a decision about whether to accept a pre-doc offer, do some self-reflection, especially if it's out of the field that you were originally thinking you might want to do a pre-doc in, that you were excited enough about the position and the work that you think you are going to be engaged in it when you get there. Because if you're not, that could be quite problematic for your working relationship with your faculty supervisor. It's sort of hard to know all of this stuff upfront, but do your due diligence, really pay attention to how you're feeling in the interview or interviews with the faculty supervisor. Talk to current and former pre-docs that have worked with that faculty supervisor or that group of faculty supervisors to see if the fit seems like it's going to work for you.

(34:10):
And then especially if you're in a university setting like Yale or Columbia or Chicago, et cetera, you're likely going to have the opportunity to take coursework or go to seminars outside of the field that you're working in. So that's a way, if you're working in a field that maybe wasn't your original first interest, to keep exploring other fields of interest to you as well.

Yvan N'Guettia (34:37):
I'll strongly echo that, and I'm actually a perfect example of this. It probably brought it always the best strategy. For me, it's the most rewarding strategy ever. Because I remember as I was starting the application process, I was decided to look into development because a lot development that's exactly what I wanted to do, and I didn't want to apply to anything else. But I got quickly regarded by my professors or my surrounding groups were like, "Okay, prepared is actually not only about diving into a specific topic. It's only about learning to manage a research project, learning to be a professional researcher, learning to communicate, learning to make partnership. It's not only about that topic. And if you lock yourself into one thing and later on you find out that that's actually not the thing you want to do, then you might be stuck into a program for two years." And that's exactly what happened.

(35:25):
I joined these development programs. I learned that development is not exactly what I thought it was. And now I'm starting to get to learn more about other aspects of econ through my professor and through other PIs as well. And I was a hard lock development person, but now I'm migrating to other field of economics. So if at the beginning when I was applying, I was only look into that specific topic, I think I would not be able to learn or grow as a researcher. Because most importantly, as Professor Dingle mentioned before, economics have a lot of toolkits that used by every. Actually, it's common to many different fields. So it's actually not only important to learn more about your field, but also learn about those toolkits. And if you only learn the toolkit that specifically apply to that topical aspect that you're learning, then you might not be able to grow or to migrate toward other field of econ.

(36:22):
And again, even if you dedicate yourself to, for instance, labor development, macros, there are going to be some points in your career where you have to step out of those and interpret your topic towards something that's bigger or that's more narrower. And if you don't experience into those topics, it might be very difficult for you to be the version of anything that you want to do.

Stephen Lamb (36:44):
There's a question here that we've gotten in the Q&A box that is intended for Anna and Yvan, but I'm curious, Rebecca and Jonathan, if you will have any reactions after they give their responses. Someone is asking a little bit more about the pre-doc experience. So Anna, this may be specifically for you since you've been through one year of it though Yvan you may have some thoughts here as well. Have you taken any courses during the pre-doc? And if so, what was that like? What do you do outside of work maybe preparing for the PhD, but also as a human being who may have interests other than preparing for a PhD? Did you ever consider continuing as a pre-doc at a different institution instead of moving straight onto the PhD program or generally considering, I think, opportunities other than going straight to a PhD after the pre-doc?

Anna Volpp (37:34):
Good questions. Okay, I guess to start from the beginning of your list, I have taken courses as a pre-doc. I took real analysis because I didn't take it in college, and I'm interested in applying to PhD programs in economics, which view those courses very favorably. So I did take that. I know other people that have not taken any courses, and I know people that have taken a course every quarter semester for the first year of the pre-doc. So there's quite a range. Outside of work, I like to explore Chicago. There's a lot of really cool nature here. So going on runs, hanging out with people outside of the pre-doc, I think is especially good to immerse yourself in different communities. I would say applications has taken up a fair amount of time, so you're going to have to allocate that appropriately. So yeah, I can't deny that that's taken up a lot of my social life and stuff like that.

(38:37):
And no, I haven't considered doing a pre-doc at a different institution, more because I think I've learned a lot from my current position and it's convinced me that I want to do a PhD, and so that's naturally the next step for me. If I was less sure, maybe I would decide to do some other type of research. But I think for the most part, people tend to just do one pre-doc.

Yvan N'Guettia (39:04):
I'm just one month and I think two weeks in my pre-doc right now. So I might not have a huge experience as Anna has, but I love it so far. My experience has been quite non-standard compared to other pre-docs because I'm starting my full first year of pre-doc by doing field work. I'm right in Cameroon right now. I have been in Benin and Cote d'Ivoire in the last couple of weeks. So I've been traveling a lot across the continent doing field work. So I haven't had time to take classes. And I told my professors and she doesn't think that I need to take classes, but that's to be decided. But the plan is in my second year to go back to Princeton's campus and start doing the regular pre-doc programming, like seminars and conferences and having that one-on-one conversations. But I've never considered applying to any other pre-doc programs after I joined.

(39:58):
I love my placement. Everything is great. I'm actually learning more than I actually expected. And a pre-doc is actually a bit wild at least at Princeton. Maybe not generalize at least for my PI, because what she did, she did, she goes in the field. She stayed with me for two weeks and then she left and she's like, okay, do the project, do your thing. And I was like, wow, I graduated just for, I don't know, how many months? Three to four months ago. I've never done this before. And how do we expect me to do all of those work? But I've been challenging but incredible. I think the second set of question was about if we considered other pre-docs, if I'm not mistaken. And I think I answered that already. No, I haven't considered any. I'm looking forward to how the first year and the second year are going to go.

Stephen Lamb (40:49):
And then a question here that I think may be appropriate to Rebecca and Jonathan, though again, Yvan and Anna, if you have thoughts, by all means, let us know. The question as it's actually asked is talking about research conducted not in academia. So research conducted maybe in industry or policy setting rather than a traditional academic setting is whether this counts as research. I think we can say pretty plainly, yes, it does count as research. But my question that I would add on to the two of you, are there different ways that people might want to represent that research in their application materials to make sure that the totality of their experience is coming across clearly as compared to an RAship at a university? Or are they essentially equivalent in the way they would be represented?

Rebecca Toseland (41:37):
I think it totally depends on what non-academic pre-doc program we're talking about. So you might be at, I don't know, Microsoft Research doing stuff or at the Fed working with an Economist there who maintains a very active academic research agenda where you might have the opportunity to be working on academic journal articles in addition to the policy work they might be doing at the Fed. But I think in general, if you're at a university, it's much more likely that the crux of what you're going to be doing in your pre-doc is contributing to projects that are going to be academic journal articles. And the narrative of that and then matriculating to a PhD program can sometimes be a bit easier. But I think there are great pre-docs outside of university institutions. So I think just trying to figure out upfront before you enter the job what the job is going to entail in the position.

(42:48):
And are you going to get research experience that's going to be relevant to the PhD?

Jonathan Dingel (43:00):
Yeah. Outside the universities, what you might be doing is just much more heterogeneous. So as Rebecca said, if you're an RA at the Fed, that's sort of indistinguishable from other pre-docs. What it means to be at a think tank can be quite heterogeneous in the sense of was the paper. When you do econ research, maybe I'm a slow researcher, but my papers wind up taking years to complete. So if your experience is in an environment where the think tanker is writing something in a week to react to current events, that's not likely the same thing as what we're doing at the university. So at the application stage, you need to be able to demonstrate that the experience you're having there is relevant in your application. If your recommendation letter writer has a PhD in economics, then they know what the academic work is like and can probably describe how your experience in industry or in a think tank is quite relevant.

(44:01):
I mean, there are gigs. If you are an associate at a firm that's doing antitrust litigation with a bunch of IO economists, the industrial organization economists as the expert witnesses, then actually you're in an environment that is a for-profit exercise. It's not academia, but you're deploying skills and working for people that are very much in the university environment. So the burden in your application is to establish the relevance and say that this is similar in the relevant ways to what people are doing at universities when they're hiring pre-docs.

Stephen Lamb (44:39):
And then sticking with Rebecca and Jonathan, a not entirely dissimilar question. We've had a few questions like this. For international applicants, is there anything that they should be doing in particular to make sure that reviewers have all the context they need to evaluate their materials well?

Jonathan Dingel (44:57):
So to the extent you can translate your GPA to a US 4.0 scale, it saves us a lot of trouble because it seems that every country has chosen, is it out of 26 or out of 30 or whatever? So just make it comparable. And sorry, but the vast majority of pre-doc jobs I think are US-based, and so the vast majority of people reading these applications are going to be thinking about a typical US GPA scale, et cetera. So to the extent that you can make your materials comparable, that's extremely helpful. That's the number one thing in terms of just if you say that you got a 25 for your exam marks, I don't know how to interpret that necessarily.

Rebecca Toseland (45:44):
And further related to that, as you may know, we have a lot of grade inflation in the US institutions. So if you can put yourself in context with your class, for example, to show us that maybe this looks low on a GPA scale, but in fact you were the top person in your class, that is also helpful. Can I briefly go back to this idea of doing a second pre-doc, Stephen?

Stephen Lamb (46:14):
Yeah, sure.

Rebecca Toseland (46:15):
Okay. So I think what I want to say is that there are pluses and minuses of pre-docs in our discipline. The plus of pre-docs is that I think people are entering grad school with a lot more preparation than I did almost 20 years ago when pre-docs didn't exist and I went right from undergrad. But the negative of that is that it's lengthening time to degree, and I think we should be really thoughtful about that. So if you're thinking about doing two pre-docs, I think also thinking about how that might lengthen the time it's going to take you to get a PhD, which is already now usually a six-year investment. However, in our program, I would say the vast majority of our pre-docs come in, they're here for a year or two years with the same faculty supervisors, and then they go on to PhD programs or they decide they're not going to do a PhD, which is also fine.

(47:07):
But I've also had some instances in which a pre-doc has arrived and realized that the fit is not right or vice versa with the faculty member or some little bit of both. I've had a pre-doc switch from working with an environmental economist one year to working with one of our political scientists the next year and then going into a political science PhD program. I've had a pre-doc start working with an IO economist at our business school, go do a pre-doc at the Harvard Kennedy School, and is now in the Harvard Kennedy School PhD program. So if you're finding that. I think sometimes it can be useful if you're realizing that actually you would benefit from a little bit more and different training before a PhD. If there's someone like me, you could either talk directly to your faculty advisor or first talk to the director of the program that you're in about what you're experiencing, and hopefully those people can help advise you in a positive way.

Stephen Lamb (48:06):
As my final question to you all, I would appreciate if you could share some piece of advice around the application process or thinking about pursuing this pathway that you haven't had the chance to bring up so far.

Yvan N'Guettia (48:27):
I can start. For me, something that other panelists have mentioned a bit. Surrounding yourself with people who can give you good advice. For me, that was extremely important. I think Stephen also have an opportunity a bit also when he was introducing the session. When you're applying for pre-docs, I would assume that you'd be in your senior year and it's actually happening in the fall for those applying earlier. And in that time it's a very busy time because you need to work on your thesis, you need to work on exams. Some people also have a job on the side. And for me, I feel that was the most stressful timeline of all my four years at my college. It was very difficult to manage. And at the same time I had exams, I had papers, I had all those things I have happening. So I feel like my support group or my surrounding advising group was extra determining in helping me go through that process because they gave me good advice, they helped me manage the whole application season and my academics at the same time.

(49:30):
They helped me through my interviews, even my classmates helped me prepare for one of my interviews before I did it. So having a very strong support group during that season is going to be detrimental. Sorry, it's going to be extremely important. And not having that support who can actually be detrimental to the process, regardless of how high your GPA is or how elaborate your classes are. If you don't have a strong support system that can give you good advice that can review your material or help you prepare for the interviews or help you go through those stressful periods, it might actually make your path way more difficult than it has to be. So make sure that you get that settled even before you even start your researching in second pool.

Anna Volpp (50:16):
I guess my piece of advice would be to just keep an open mind. I think that for me at least the pre-doc program that I'm in now is not what I was expecting given my academic interests, but I've been very grateful to have had the experience I've had. I think I've also taken a somewhat non-linear path compared to other people that now either go straight through to grad school or do pre-doc and then go to grad school. And I think it's important that there's no one correct path, things will work out. And yeah, just keep an open mind, be open to opportunities. Some things might be better than you expect originally. And so yeah, just be positive.

Jonathan Dingel (51:01):
I guess my advice would be be strategic during the application process. It's all upside. Pre-docs are pretty good gigs. You get paid money, it's a good job, and it might be a very good way to figure out that you don't want to do a PhD much faster than entering a PhD program and making that sacrifice. So it's all upside or it's a great opportunity. So my advice is just make the investments in terms of send out extra applications. Your choice set being larger can't hurt you. And as I said earlier, it's a matching market where you're trying to find the right person that you want to work with or the right opportunity of which university you want to be at or what topic you might get excited about. So as Yvan was saying, it's going to take some time, and it is at crunch time where it's fall semester of your senior year, so that can be inconvenient.

(51:52):
At least we're not charging you money. When you do PhD applications, you have to spend a hundred bucks a pop. And so my advice of, oh, send out 20 applications. And you're like, well, I have liquidity constraints, blah, blah, blah. So here, it's a job opportunity. It mostly is upside. I just send out as many applications as you can, do as many interviews as you can. And then I think a lot of people find the right fit and get a great job as a result.

Rebecca Toseland (52:20):
Yeah, I would say get as much out of the pre-doc, out of the job as you can. Take every opportunity you have to invest in that opportunity and learn. But also for whatever that looks like for you, figure out stuff outside of work that's going to keep you sane. That will serve you well in the pre-doc, and then also a PhD program should you decide to pursue that. And of course, the professional relationships you develop with faculty at your institution or PhD economists are very important, but your relationships with your peers are equally, if not more important. These are people that you're going to be going into the profession with and you're going to keep seeing for a very long time. So I think making those and investing in those professional connections is also quite important.

Stephen Lamb (53:17):
Okay. Well, on that note, thank you very much to all of our panelists. I'll go ahead and end the recording here.

Stephen Lamb (00:02):
And I will thank our panelists for joining us for the second panel for the PRE workshop talking about how to be succesful in the pre-doc role. To get things started off, could I just ask each of you to introduce yourselves? Pascal, maybe you can start.

Pascal Noel (00:17):
Hi, I'm Pascal Noel. I'm a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. I'm in the finance group, and I do work at the intersection of household finance, public finance, and macroeconomics, and have been lucky to work with a number of fantastic pre-docs over the last decade or so.

Vaishali Garga (00:36):
Vaishali? Hi, I'm Vaishali Garga. I'm at the Boston Fed. I'm a Principal Economist in the research department, and I work primarily in the areas of monetary and fiscal stabilization policy, monetary policy transmission in emerging and advanced economies and inflation dynamics. And I also briefly taught at Harvard University for one semester, and I've also had some experience now working with research associates who are at the Boston Fed typically for two years each. Roberto?

Roberto Gonzalez (01:16):
Yeah. Hi everyone. I'm Roberto Gonzalez. I come from Mexico City. Right now I'm at Stanford. I'm a research fellow in the Graduate School of Business. I work mostly in projects related to development economics and political economics. And before coming here at Stanford, I was doing my bachelor's and my master's in Mexico City. And yeah, that's about it.

Stephen Lamb (01:39):
And Peter.

Peter Wilschke (01:41):
Hi. I just finished a predoc position basically at the Federal Reserve Board in DC. I'm now in Massachusetts about to start my PhD in health policy on the econ track at Harvard.

Stephen Lamb (01:53):
Thank you all for those introductions. And for everyone, you will have noticed that we can divide this group into two parts, the part of Pascal and Vaishali who are supervising RAs and pre-docs and Roberto and Peter who are pre-docs. So as with the last panel, I'll spend the first part focused on one group, on Roberto and Peter, to talk about their experience in the actual role. Then I have some questions for Pascal and Vaishali, and then I have a few questions for the whole group. And at that point, I hope we will have accumulated some questions in the Q&A tool so we can be sure to address the concerns of the audience gathered here in particular. So Roberto and Peter, to start out with the two of you, how is it that you build good relationships with the faculty who supervise you, with your PIs?

Roberto Gonzalez (02:40):
Yeah, I'll start. So I think probably the most important part of the job is good communication. So in general, I think to develop a good relationship with the PIs, you have to know what the goals of the projects are and just communicate every time you have a doubt. Not every time, but you learn working with your PIs when you can actually take decisions on your own and keep moving the projects forward and when you actually have to stop and ask them a few clarification questions. But in general, I think it's just making sure that everyone's on the same page while working on projects and also making sure sometimes we get many tasks and some are more prioritary than others. So it's also a good thing to, when a bunch of tasks accumulate, I think it's very good to ask your PI, okay, out of these eight tasks that I have to do, which ones would you like me to prioritize?

(03:44):
Because sometimes we're not aware of some deadlines that they might have. So I think it's good to just, in order to align what both people are expecting from each other, just ask which tasks you should prioritize. And then I think in general, communication would be my best answer to how to build a good relationship with the PI.

Peter Wilschke (04:08):
I will second communication and I'll try to offer a couple of pieces that are maybe a little distinguishable, but everything that Roberto said is absolutely true. I think the two particular things I will mention are that number one, when you're working with a lot of different economists, oftentimes each economist will have their own communication style. And some of them, for instance, if you're working on a long-term project, will want to have a scheduled meeting that's every week or every two weeks. And those can be very useful if you want to have that. Broadly though, whatever the communication style is, if you're going to be sending them messages, whenever you feel like it on Teams, if you're going to meet every week, if you're going to email and it's expected that you'll send updates whenever you do something, you want to make sure you're on the same page with them and that it's something that you can handle because you do have some input in this, your half relationship after all.

(04:58):
The other part of it is that I think relating to specific tasks, not only is it worth clarifying on how urgent certain things are if you've got a lot, but economists can easily assign tasks that happen to be way more challenging than they think they are. And there are good reasons for this, but that's something that you want to be able to communicate for sure that they may say, "Oh, can you pull this data?" And they expect that it's going to be done probably by the afternoon because it's just a data set. But there are a variety of complications that arise. Definitely it's worth being very clear about those sorts of things because one of the sub-aspects of having this relationship communication is making sure that they're always aware of the minute details that they're just not going to know if they're not working directly with this data and that sort of thing that are going to affect the project.

(05:56):
And also it makes sure that you don't look like you're taking forever to do something that should be really, really easy because it's actually not.

Stephen Lamb (06:05):
I imagine, I know in the fact in the case of one of you, that you had research experiences prior to starting the pre-doc, that that was part of what helped you understand that this is what you wanted to do and get you some experience that could be valuable. How were these part-time student RA experiences or research experiences different than the pre-doc experience in ways that could be useful for someone who wants to pursue a pre-doc to know?

Roberto Gonzalez (06:31):
Okay, I'll go again. So for me, I did research assistant work in Mexico, and it was very different because the professor I worked with had a few other research assistants. It was maybe three of us, but this was during COVID and a little bit after COVID. So we didn't meet much in person. Basically it was each of us working from home and basically no social interaction whatsoever, except for whenever we had doubts about something, the more senior people would help the more junior people. But in general, it was very everybody on their own. Whereas here at Stanford, I think just being able to be... The pre-doc group at Stanford is quite big. There's I think 40 pre-docs at the GSB and there's another 40 at the econ department and there's 10 across the sustainability and law schools. So we have a big group here, and I think it's really nice because one, we're not only exposed to econ people, which I think helps a lot because you can talk about other people's projects and you learn about other fields and what people in other fields are doing.

(07:42):
And also the social aspect of just being able to... Sometimes everyone is stressed for some reason, or not everyone, but a group of people are stressed because they have deadlines coming up or something like that. So just very nice to be able to just have a group of friends who understand what you're doing or what you're going through, and then you can go play volleyball with them or go for a walk or go play tennis. I'm very sports-based, so in general, my way of relaxing is just doing any activity with my friends. So I think that would be a big difference. And another big difference is that here, at least at Stanford, we get the chance to take some classes, and it's PhD-level classes, which was not available for me in Mexico. So I think that's great because you basically get a little bit of the taste of what a PhD could be like.

(08:37):
At least here at Stanford, we can take classes from any department we want so long as it's somewhat related to what we think our research interests are right now. So a lot of people here take computer science classes or law classes, like class at the law school, class in environmental econ or stuff like that. So I think overall, I would say it's different in the sense that you get exposure to a more PhD-like academic experience, and you have the social component of there's a lot of people who are going through the same thing that you're going through and you can get to just have some friends who are actually similar to you in research goals or career goals, I would say.

Peter Wilschke (09:26):
I will second the social aspect. It's very nice to be working with a large group of people. The Board has, I think, even more research assistants than Stanford. We have probably about 150 total. And so getting to work, not everyone wants to go onto PhDs eventually. I think probably between 40% and 50% of us end up going to graduate school for a PhD specifically. But just having this general community of people who broadly have the similar backgrounds and potentially similar interests is very, very useful and worth staying in touch with. One other point that may be a little bit specific to the board, I've heard different things from other people in other pre-docs, is that unlike working when you're in school, it is a full-time job, which you are working on whatever you are asked to work on for the days for the most part.

(10:16):
And so it's not as though in most cases you have a ton of flexibility for your own personal research agenda, unless it's a super light week of work for whatever reason. But the flip side of that is it's only a full-time job, that you do have the rest of your week that's not taken up by your roughly 40 hours of work. And the Board is at least very good about this, and you are told in fact not to stay past 5:00 PM in general. And so having time outside I think is different from the undergraduate experience, at least that I had, where you aren't working in nine to five specifically, but there's never really a time that you are really off the clock. And so having that, whether you're as I think socializing with your peers and everyone else outside is really useful. If you want to use any of the time, as mentioned, take a class, you do truly have your own time in this sort of position, at least to some degree, which I think is a little bit different than the experience as an undergrad.

Stephen Lamb (11:13):
So you've each addressed a few points to my next question, but I want to ask it anyway in case you want to go into more detail or you have other points that you want to raise. The relationship with the PI, with your supervisor, your Economist or your faculty member is the core of the pre-doc experience and much of the value that you get from that relationship makes up the important parts of those two years. But we have talked now about a few different things that exist outside of that relationship that can also be a value in the pre-doc experience. You mentioned relationships with peers, taking classes, things like that. What of those sort of peripheral benefits would you want to emphasize to this group who are considering pre-doctoral pathways?

Roberto Gonzalez (11:56):
Yeah, I think the pre-doc is overall is the same experience for everyone, but the particular details are unique to each person because only you know if you're going to grad school, if you plan on going to grad school, only you know what your application really looks like. So for example, some people may have not taken advanced math courses. So for them, the pre-doc is a good opportunity to take math classes and then fill those gaps in their application. Some other people come from math majors, for example. So for them it's like, oh, I've done the technical coursework, so maybe I will spend more time thinking about my own research and going to seminars and maybe not even the econ seminars, but just other seminars to see how people think or what questions are being asked. So I think the pre-doc in general, each person can tailor it the way they want or the way they think it's best for them to take advantage of it.

(13:02):
And I think that can be very broad because some people take classes, some people never take classes and only do instead of devoting time to a class, they try to prepare GRE or the writing sample or work on their own projects. Because as Peter said, since it's a full-time job, it's a full-time job. So you get a little bit of your week for doing whatever you want, be that play sports or do your own research or whatever, just hang out. So in general, I'd say there's a big amount of things that you can do, which is taking classes, attending seminars, talking to people from other schools, not necessarily econ or finance or something related to that.

(13:55):
And also every now and then there's conferences, at least here at Stanford, we have conferences every now and then. So you can also go to those conferences and talk to people. And sometimes in those conferences, it's not only professors who come, it's also PhD students from all over the place. So you can just go and meet people from other parts of the world and you can ask about if you're interested in university X, what does the PhD look like there? Or people are from all over the world, so you can also ask them about their home country and stuff like that. So I think outside of the relationship with the PI, you basically get a lot of leeway to do anything that you find useful for your application and just basically for your own personal... It's one or two years that you basically try to figure out what you want to do.

(14:49):
So I think you can just try to tailor it the best way you can.

Peter Wilschke (14:56):
Yeah, I will second all of that. I was told at the beginning that, particularly maybe at the Fed, but I'm sure everywhere else, it really is a job where you get out what you put into it. And if you want to put not an incredible amount of effort into it, that's a pathway that is technically viable. I wouldn't recommend it, but it's possible to get away with doing only the work that you are explicitly asked to when you are asked to do it. And it's a two-year position anyways, they're not going to fire you. But that means that you have a lot of leeway to go beyond that in whichever way you choose. And so if you're going to take classes and develop your own skills, if you're going to really try and push forward on projects that you're working together on Economists with, even on your own time, sometimes just because you want to try and get a co-authorship or make sure you get a good recommendation letter, whatever you think is the most important.

(15:47):
And so I agree fundamentally in everything that Roberto said, and most of the things that I would say would just be reemphasizing different components. I think seminars are very useful, particularly. Often, at least at the Fed, there is an opportunity to sign up to speak with seminar speakers. And I think RAs, myself included, we're usually sort of intimidated to do that because most of these are signup slots with economists who are talking at a peer-to-peer level and you're really in some ways going to be asking for advice or something along those lines. But especially if the seminar speaker has a background that appeals to you or is studying topics that you think are very interesting, I would certainly not only go to the seminars, but if there's a possibility to meet with that speaker while they're there, take it. That's an excellent opportunity and they're always happy to speak with you, at least in my experience.

(16:32):
And I'll also mention, and this is particularly a strong program at the Fed, but I think that this is a thing that a lot of other pre-doc places do. You should think very seriously about applying for an NSF GRFP grant, assuming those still exist. I will say, of course, this time last year or a few months, maybe last June, it was unclear whether the program would exist and it did end up existing. So I have relatively hope that it will continue this year. With that said, anyways, that program I think is very useful for would-be PhD students. Whether or not you win, because most PhD programs are funded anyways, I think that's sort of marginal. The act of getting to write this research proposal in a very formal way and getting advice on it, because especially if you have this grant that you want to apply to, your PIs are going to be very interested in helping you with it.

(17:23):
It makes them look good if their students get this. And just generally, of course, they're academics, they want to help with research in this way. That's sort of why they do it. So I'll mention that specifically as one of those things that you could spend some time on your own doing if you want to, and certainly recommend it also helps you figure out for sure whether you want to do a PhD because you get to work on something that you personally want to do. And so you have to push your own project forward, which is slightly different than broadly the day-to-day of a RA.

Stephen Lamb (17:52):
One more question I have before I move on to Pascal and Vaishali with a few questions is a question that I've just seen here in the Q&A box. A question about, I'd say, the culture within different pre-doc programs. And in particular, a concern given that many people who do pre-docs are very interested in applying to PhD programs and there are only so many slots available. Does the culture become competitive or difficult in that sense? How would you describe what your relationships are like with your peers?

Roberto Gonzalez (18:23):
Yeah, I think here at GSB, it's application season from what I've seen last year with the people who are in the second year. Everyone is very respectful and it's actually super supportive. If you tell them like, oh yeah, I'm studying for GRE, everyone is like, oh, you'll get it done. Don't worry. Come on. It's encouraging. And then once everyone's done with that, it's just like people are somewhat stressed because then you have to write SOPs and send everything. But in general, I think it's very supportive and very respectful. At least here, people don't come and ask you about stuff. In general, we all know what each other is going through. So you try to ask people, you ask your friends to see how they're doing just to check in on them, but you don't really ask. It doesn't get competitive to the point of where you're trying to just ask people everything you can to see whether your application has a better or worse chance at X place.

(19:29):
So in general, I wouldn't worry that much about that. I guess as in every place in the world, there's maybe one or two people who may be like that, but if that happens, you just tell them, oh, I don't feel comfortable discussing this with you and that's it. But in general, I'd say it doesn't get super competitive. We all know that most of us are applying to grad school. We know what each other's profiles look like, and it's just like you wish the best to everyone who works with you. And then people don't really think like, oh, I'm competing against my friend who sits right next to me every day. It's just like, I'm going to do my application, I'm going to send it. This person's going to do their application, they're going to send it. And then at the end of the day, it's like we don't really get to choose where we're admitted or not.

(20:18):
So everyone just tries to be very supportive and in general, supportive and respectful to try to not cross any boundaries that may make people somewhat uncomfortable, I would say.

Peter Wilschke (20:34):
Yeah, I'll second all that. I've had a very positive experience doing applications with everyone at the Board. I think the two things to think about are the number one, as Roberto mentioned, everyone knows that it's a very stressful time. And also, frankly, in terms of the competition aspect, it's basically true that 80% to 90% of the relevant, if not more, of the relevant material for the PhD application is sort of done by the time you're actually writing and submitting your applications. And so there's basically nothing to compete for at that point. It's just making sure that people get across the finish line because it just kind of sucks to go through the process, find all your schools, write all your statements and whatnot. But the statements are broadly not going to, I think, make or break it in a lot of ways. And so even if there was anyone who really wanted to get in a specific program, I really just don't think there's any room for changes at the last minutes really mattering.

(21:26):
And so all I will say is we had a very robust support network at the Board. I read a bunch of my friends' SOPs, NSF proposals. We had a RA seminar where we would present our NSF ideas throughout the process, get feedback from each other, which I found extremely useful. And particularly after we submitted applications in the worst three or four months of your life when you're waiting between having submitted everything and everything is completely out of your hands and waiting to hear back from schools, going around the offices and getting to hear from everybody, whether a specific school has gotten back to them was, I think, better than it would've been to deal with that on my own. So on the whole, I actually think it's very nice to work with people who are in the same boat. And I would certainly encourage, if you're in this position, I would encourage you to even try and foster that culture by, if you want, asking for and/or offering advice on applications because I really don't think there's any...

(22:22):
At the point that you're at, I don't think there's any meaningful degree of competition that's going to be able to arise even if you wanted it to.

Stephen Lamb (22:33):
Pascal, Vaishali, tell us about the working environments that you set, the managerial expectations that you set of your pre-docs, and what you hope that they'll do to be able to respond fruitfully in those sorts of environments.

Pascal Noel (22:49):
I can go first. I think that Roberto and Peter set up very well with their experiences. One thing to note at the outset is that the experience is pretty different across different labs, across different research groups, even across different topics. And so we can say some things generally, I can talk about the experience in my lab, but it's not exactly always going to be the same. And one piece of advice that I would have for all of you who are considering pre-docs is to spend a bunch of time when you're thinking of applying, when you're in the application process, trying to figure out what a particular lab is about, what the environment is like. Talk to the RAs and RPs who have pre-docs who have done it and the pre-docs who are in it right now to get a sense of what the group is about.

(23:38):
So to give a sense about my lab, there is a high amount of high-frequency in-person interactions. And so we have a daily standup where we have, usually it's a short 20-minute meeting, but every day where every single person goes around and talks about what they're doing, both the pre-docs and the PIs, so that we can have some questions that everybody's on the same page about what's going on, and we can get through any misunderstandings or questions to make sure everyone has a plan for the day. And then as I think maybe both Roberto and Peter mentioned, we also have longer hour-long meetings for particular projects. And those happen usually once per week, sometimes twice per week for projects that are at the forefront of what we're working on. And there, all of the PIs and the pre-docs who are working on a particular topic will get together.

(24:40):
Then Peter, you asked about, or Stephen, you asked about expectations. So the expectations that we set are that everyone has their eye on what is the goal of the research group. The goal of the research group is to produce new knowledge that is going to help us better understand the world. In my group, ideally, we'd like to be able to understand what are the different levers that policymakers or businesses can pull to help improve people's lives. And sometimes people think, oh, as a pre-doc, I'm just like, I get a task from... It's like a problem set. I get a task from a professor, and then I just have to go do exactly that task. And then once I run that regression, then I'm done. I think when you translate more away from student and towards pre-doc, it's more open-ended. We don't know the answer. Unlike a problem set, we don't know the asnwer of a research question.

(25:31):
If we did, we wouldn't be doing the research. And so there's much more of a, I'm part of an organization, I'm part of a group that's trying to learn something new. And so even if my PI has told me, okay, I want you to run this regression, I know that I need to think about what does it mean when I see the answers? What is the next regression I should run on my own? Maybe they're asking me to run the wrong regression and I should be thinking about what's the right thing to run. And so we really have an expectation that the pre-docs are starting to transition from student to researcher and are trying to use their brains to contribute to the research endeavor of the organization. The last thing I'll say is that I said the expectation is for you to be part of a group whose purpose is to produce research.

(26:21):
But as both Roberto and Peter mentioned, there's also a huge training aspect. And so it's not just, okay, the end product of a successful group is just the research that comes at the end. It's like, did you learn something along the way? Are you gaining skills along the way? Are you able to learn some economics along the way or some finance or whatever it is that you're working on in your pre-doc? And so we're trying to pursue both objectives at the same time. It's produce research and have everybody learn some skills along the way.

(26:56):
That's all I got.

Vaishali Garga (26:59):
Okay. So I can add a bit. So I think Pascal, Peter, and Roberto basically covered a lot of the things I would say, but maybe specifically to the Fed. So just in terms of the working environment and management style, so I'll just start at the outset by saying that there's two kinds of work you do at the Fed. There is academic research and then there's policy work. And academic research runs on its own long timeline. Every project is two to three years, whereas policy work is more time constrained. So every FOMC cycle has six weeks. So you take those four to six weeks to help your Economist prepare the briefings for the bank president essentially, which then help her make her FOMC decisions. So with that, the working environment in general I think is very collegial, both among Economists and RAs. As Peter mentioned, you joined with a cohort of RAs, so maybe there were 150 at the Board, which is quite huge.

(28:08):
At the Boston Fed, we have about 20-ish RAs at any point in time. We offer a lot of training at the time of onboarding. There is a lot of cross-training across RAs throughout their time here.

(28:24):
You join and then you stay within one research group. But in general, you're part of this broader community, intellectual community where we would like you to attend research seminars. We have FOMC watch parties where we are trying to watch the press conferences and trying to learn what exactly were you contributing towards all these six weeks. We have reading groups, we have visiting scholars, and we encourage interaction with them. You can take courses at nearby universities and a lot of people who want to do a PhD end up taking real analysis if they haven't done that before, and that's funded by the Fed. And just I think there's a lot of training among RAs with each other. So I think that's the working environment. The management style, it has changed recently. So like I said, there's five research groups within the research department. So you are in one group for the purposes of management.

(29:27):
And in general, it's very, very professional. There is an HR, so there's no bad practices. Everyone goes through the same evaluation process at the end of the day. So the Economists and RAs, you set up goals at the beginning of the year, there's a mid-year evaluation check-in. Then at the end of the year, you get some performance review. And then just in terms of day-to-day management, I think that ends up depending, like Pascal was saying, where you end up. So at least for me, for example, I like to do more regular check-ins with my RA just to align on what is the progress on stuff we discussed yesterday. So I kind of meet my RA daily pretty much. So we discuss progress, we discuss any specific questions, comments, or issues that came up while working, any potential areas of misalignment. So this is something Peter was mentioning, I think, where sometimes Economists think, oh, this tasks will take 30 minutes, but actually it takes three hours.

(30:35):
And then there shouldn't be frustration at the end of the day of why didn't the RA just do this in 30 minutes? So I think for me, it's important to understand what task is taking how much time, and then I can align future tasks accordingly. And then in this meeting, we also just discuss the plan for the next steps. So I think that would be the working environment and management style. And then in terms of expectation, maybe in terms of what Pascal was saying of transition from student to researcher, I completely agree with that. And there I would maybe categorize into a few points where I think initiative is very important. So don't just wait for instructions. If you see a better way to visualize the data or something, just bring that idea forward. That's very welcome. Being super careful is also very important because especially for policy work, the stuff that you produce sometimes will just directly go into the remarks of the bank president and the FOMC decisions.

(31:44):
And so it's really, really important that everything is correct. Integrity is very important. So everyone makes errors and it's important to just know how to bring them up and to bring them up and flag it. Maybe you spot an error in your Economist's code, flag that. I think that's also very welcome. And then the other thing is knowing when to ask for help is also very important because sometimes someone else knows how to do what you're doing in 20 minutes and you would spend a week on it and maybe understanding the context for the exercise and being independent, but also knowing when to ask for help. I think that's something that's a balance that you need to learn. Yeah, so I think maybe I will stop there for this one.

Stephen Lamb (32:36):
Acknowledging Pascal's caveat about different pre-docs having different needs and different expectations, we often get the question of people who are interested in doing a pre-doc, what do I need to do now in order to prepare? And in particular, what classes should I be taking? What technical skills should I be making sure that I have ready to go on day one of the job? Can you talk a little bit about what your technical expectations on day one walking onto the job would be?

Pascal Noel (33:06):
I can start. I would actually say that they are not high. And in my experience, some of my most successful pre-docs, my most helpful pre-docs were the ones that actually had the least amount of technical background. Maybe this is a little idiosyncratic, but I think basically if you are excited about the work, want to learn about economics and can be careful, then being smart and careful and enthusiastic is more important than, have I learned this particular programming language? Have I already had exposure to a bunch of the necessary eonometrics? Because if you're smart and careful and enthusiastic, you can learn all of those things along the way. And so probably you should know some economics. And so I would say through intermediate micro and macro, at least for econ-focused positions, and ideally some econometrics, you know something about, again, if you're going to do an empirical econ pre-doc, then you know something about how to run a regression, something about how to make a figure in a table.

(34:22):
So maybe something about how to think about causal inference, like difference in differences and instrumental variables and regression discontinuity designs. But beyond that, you don't already have to necessarily know a real analysis. You don't already need to know how to do a bunch of machine learning. You don't already need to know how to do the most complex coding of standard error packages or the vanguard of event study packages. I think those are the kinds of things that, as I mentioned, part of what the pre-docs are all about is you learning new skills. And so I think if I have a pre-doc who's smart and motivated and careful and I want them to do something that they don't know how to do yet, then they take the time to learn it and that's great. That's time well spent. They're going to do the thing that we need for the project and they're going to learn new skills.

(35:08):
So that's how I think about it. Now obviously I understand that many of you are going to be applying to pre-doc positions and you want to signal that you have all of the relevant skills. And so I would say doing well in whatever courses that you're doing is more important in my view than have I taken every single math class or every single coding class that I can possibly take?

Vaishali Garga (35:37):
Yeah, I think again, at the Fed, I would say it's similar to what Pascal is saying. If you're smart, motivated, careful, you can learn and you have this desire to learn. I think you can come in with not knowing everything and that's totally okay. I would say maybe programming language is maybe less non-negotiable here just because the pool of candidates that we've seen in the past, everyone has at least one programming language that they feel comfortable with. And so just by virtue of not knowing a programming language, maybe you put yourself in a little bit of a difficult position. But again, you have an interview, you get a chance to show people your passion and your motivation. And if that comes through in an honest way, then we can discount that you do not know programming. And I do think AI is now making that hurdle even lower because you don't need to be an expert at STATA and every single package or Python or whatever.

(36:52):
You just need to be able to think in some sort of an analytical way which would enable you to code and not knowing the coding syntax is okay. And then I think the other thing is data skills are important. So again, it's not like you need to be like this econometric whiz, but if you had exposure to some of these identification strategies like diff-in-diff, IV, if you have some basic understanding of that, that's very useful. You certainly do not need to know real analysis. I do not use that in my day-to-day at all. It's just something you need for a PhD application these days. And then I think we do value experience with having worked with some data set. So again, it's just because for policy work and a lot of, I guess, research these days, it's very data heavy. And so if you have just some exposure to any kind of data, it's useful if you demonstrate that.

(37:54):
Or if I just hand you a data set, where would you even begin? So just having some sort of a framework that if you're handed a data set, this is how to approach it. I think those kinds of skills are valuable.

Stephen Lamb (38:10):
We have a question here in the Q&A that I want to bring to both of you around co-authorship. Somebody asking, is it possible? Is it common? If it happens, what would it look like?

Pascal Noel (38:23):
Vaishali, you want to go first? I think it's pretty common at the Fed.

Vaishali Garga (38:26):
Yeah, it is pretty common at the Fed. And again, I would say there's two categories of papers that we write. There's policy papers and there's academic research papers. And co-authorships are getting more and more common with the policy papers because again, these are short-term projects. So for sure you are there from the start to the end of the project. And if you've contributed meaningfully, Economists have no trouble in acknowledging that. They want you to be part of it. If it helps with your PhD application, we want to give you credit where a credit is due. On the academic work, I would say it's still less common, but that's mostly because the project kind of outlives the RAship. So when you're onboarded as an RA, you typically join a project which already existed. You're here for two years and the project still goes on after you leave.

(39:26):
So it's not out of the question. Again, if you contribute meaningfully and you deserve to be a co-author, certainly you will get credit for that, but it just happens less ready, less frequently.

Pascal Noel (39:43):
Yeah, I'll say there's a similar thing in that in my group, we have mostly primarily been writing academic papers, although maybe more recently we started writing a few more policy briefs and we're more likely to have co-authors with pre-docs or even undergrads in writing those kinds of short-term pieces where it's important, you're doing the writing, you're doing the analysis, but it can be done in a short amount of time, maybe a matter of months rather than a matter of years. But it's much more difficult with longer term academic papers. I have one project that I'm trying to resubmit in the next few weeks that has been alive for eight years. And so there's been many iterations of pre-docs who have done amazing work on the project, but no single one has been there for the entire project. So it wouldn't make sense to have them be a co-author on that.

(40:40):
And that's a little bit of an extreme example, but most projects are somewhere on the spectrum where they outlive what a given pre-doc is around for. Two more things I'll say is that this does vary very widely. So I have colleagues at Booth and I know colleagues in other schools who are working with different types of projects and who will more commonly co-author with pre-docs. The second thing I'll say is that my advice to you, if you're thinking about this, is that I would focus much more on what are the skills that you're getting and whether this is a positive environment than do I get my name on a paper? If you're looking at as a signal for applications, generally committees won't put a ton of weight on whether you're a co-author on a paper or whether you were the pre-doc on a paper. They're going to think about it the same way.

(41:29):
They all understand the production process for that paper. And what you want is to gain skills so that if and when you decide to go to grad school and you're producing independent research, that you're doing the best research that you possibly can do.

Stephen Lamb (41:41):
So one more question for the two of you. And Pascal, you took this framework with a previous answer that you gave, but I'm curious if you have anything else that you'd like to add. When you think about previous pre-docs that you've had who have been particularly successful, are there any patterns that you recognize, any qualities that you would extract from that that you'd like to share with our audience here?

Pascal Noel (42:02):
Yeah, I think what I said is smart, enthusiastic, and willing to work hard. And I would couple that also with something that I said in one of my earlier answers, which is that it's very, very, very helpful when a pre-doc is starting to make the progression from student to researcher. And again, as a student, you're given a task and you just do that task. You're like, "I'm solving this problem. I'm doing whatever the professor has set for me." But in research, we don't know the answer. The best pre-docs are able to say, "Oh, I see where the research is going. I see what we're trying to accomplish, and I'm going to try to turn on my brain and think about how can I best help the whole team accomplish that mission?" And so as said, actually now you can have AI do some of the coding.

(42:54):
What we really need is people who are thinking, who are going to be using their judgment to help us figure out how do we get closer to the right answer? And the best pre-docs are helping us do that.

Stephen Lamb (43:14):
Vaishali, do you have anything to add to that?

Vaishali Garga (43:22):
Nothing; Pascal has covered everything I feel. But again, I would just also say there is, again, a balance between independent and collaborative. And just take ownership of the work and super enthusiastic and look at where...have the big picture in mind. But at the same time, don't be afraid to ask questions. I think this is also key because just there's a delicate balance to be struggling and it's something that you learn over time. And this is something that, I mean, it applies to me as well. When I work with co-authors, I need to know when to step back and just be in my own zone and figure stuff out and when do I need to meet with them and discuss things. So I think this applies at every stage of research.

Stephen Lamb (44:10):
Okay. Then for all four of our panelists, unless we get any more questions into the Q&A box, which I welcome from our audience, is there any piece of advice that you'd like to give that hasn't come up yet? Or maybe in one that you just want to reemphasize that you'd like to leave our audience with?

Vaishali Garga (44:37):
Maybe I can say, I don't know at what stage the audience is, but if you have a chance for yourself to research at wherever you are, I would encourage you to do that. If you're in school, you get a chance in the summer to work with a professor, do that. If you just want to learn some new coding, I think it's very easy to do this online. And like I said with AI, it's even here. Just download some data from FRED, publicly available, just play around with it. So I think there's a way to get yourself into research data mode in your free time if you wish to.

Roberto Gonzalez (45:23):
I'd say probably you can cold email of pre-docs from different places and ask them what their experience is like. For me last year, I think I got three emails from people who were thinking of applying to the Stanford pre-doc. And I think in general, whenever any of us gets that sort of email, you're very empathetic because you were once in that person's position. So it's just like people are doubtful about whether this is a good fit for them. I think it's good to ask people who are where you want to be and then just ask them like, "Oh, I'm concerned about this or that. Do you have any takes on that?" And then ask for their opinion on the workplace, the environment, the opportunities in general. Because here you've probably gotten the opinion of four people at four different places, but there's plenty other people.

(46:18):
And even if you asked people who are either at Stanford or the Fed or whatever, they probably all have very different opinions. So you ask people what they think their experience has been like. And I think in general, they will all be very happy to give their opinion on what their experience is like so far. And maybe just getting a good pool of opinions from different people.

(46:49):
Maybe you get more questions after that, but maybe it makes you more certain about whether you want to apply a certain position or not.

Pascal Noel (47:07):
I can say one thing, and this might be a little bit of a, I don't know, an unusual or controversial take given that I think the nature of the name of this is "pre-doc" with the "pre" there, where I think I would encourage you to think about these positions maybe as a "pre-tential" doc where part of what I think hopefully you might learn if you decide to do one of these positions is research actually the right thing for me? Is a PhD the right thing for me? And I view it as equally successful if a pre-doc comes in, gets a lot of skills, helps contribute to research and decides, actually, this is not what I want to do with my life. We've had fantastic pre-docs who have gone on to work in public service, gone on to go to academia, but not in doctoral programs, going to get environmental master's degrees or working in finance at quant finance.

(48:01):
And all of those are exciting, just as exciting as my pre-docs who have gone on to PhD programs. And I think it's potentially a mistake sometimes for people to go all the way through and commit out of undergrad to now it's six years of a PhD program without necessarily knowing what they're getting into. And I would think about this a little bit as an ability or an opportunity to explore research and whether this is a good fit for you and gaining some skills along the way, but also maybe deciding this isn't the right thing for you and that's fine. And so you're not necessarily locking yourself into two years of a pre-doc plus six years of a PhD unless you really decide along the way in the pre-doc that this is actually the right thing for you.

Peter Wilschke (48:48):
I guess I'm the last person here and I don't have an incredible amount of specific advice. The only thing that I would say, maybe two short things, and this is during the pre-doc specifically, I think that's what I'm most qualified to speak on. Number one, do any readings that you're asked to do. This is sort of an obvious thing, but I think that there are a lot of people who will skim things. And frankly, a lot of academic papers are not easy to read or any else that you're asked to read if it's documentation for something. You will just put yourself at a competitive advantage in general rest of your life if whenever you have a reading that you are told to do or you should do whatever that you actually do it. I think it's a less common thing than you'd think it is all I'll say.

(49:29):
And second, related to stuff that we were talking about before, I really think that the outcome of a successful pre-doc, I mean I applied to PhD programs. I did fine, it's a difficult process. I got a lot of rejections anyways. But I think the thing that matters is recommendation letter quality, if anything, that you're taking, and certainly not publications relative to that. If you do a good job, whether or not you have a co-authored paper, whatever it is, the recommendation letter is going to focus on that, if it's there. It's going to tell the admissions about all the great work you've done if there's nothing. I had zero publications to my name after my two years at the Fed, and I'm starting a program at Harvard. So I would focus really on just doing the best work you can and really not worry that much about whether it seems to you that the outputs of that work are concretely visible because that you're working with is really going to know whether you're doing work or not.

Stephen Lamb (50:29):
Sorry for the pause. I'm taking a moment to read one question that just came into the Q&A. So this came up in the previous panel as well, and I think this is a good thing. This may be good for all of our panelists, but probably especially for our current or recently former pre-docs. You presumably came into the pre-doc with some interest in research and that meant particular interest in a topic or an area. Your pre-doc may not align with that area of interest that you have. How have you extracted value from your pre-doc, even when it is not perfectly aligned with what you are interested in now? And maybe talk a little bit about whether maybe your interests have evolved and changed during or as a consequence of the pre-doc.

Roberto Gonzalez (51:15):
Yeah, I'd say for me, I've always, since when I started getting interest in academia, I was like, oh, I really like development economics. I read Poor Economics by Esther Durflo, and that was very nice for me. And then I was like, "Oh, I want to do this. I think this is cool." So that basically shaped my interests. And then in general, all that I worked on since my research assistantship before the pre-doc and then in the pre-doc have been more in general with political econ, like democracy, corruption, et cetera, kind of topics. And then here at the pre-doc, for a couple of quarters, I worked on marketing. And I think the way I see it is my research interests haven't changed that much, but I think being able, for example, to the marketing area helped me understand other research methods that even when the project is not about development, I can see how I can use those methods or skills I learned doing marketing research, how I can apply those to projects that may be interesting in development.

(52:29):
So I'd say sometimes as Pascal and Vaishali and everyone has said here, it's a big learning process. And the most important thing is even if the projects that you're working on are not the most exciting, I think the way you find them exciting is you're just learning stuff. And learning stuff is very exciting. And in general, you get to collaborate on research that is actually impactful or we hope it's impactful. So I'd say even if your own research interests do not align that well with the research you're doing for the pre-doc, a lot of the skills or most of the skills that you will learn in the process are very useful for applying to your own research. And again, I think about it is whenever I have to work on a project that is not super exciting for me, the way I try to go about it is like, okay, I know I will not be doing research on this particular topic when I do my PhD or whatever, but I can learn a lot of how are we going about this question?

(53:39):
What are the methods that are available to us? We would like to have these data, but we don't have it. So what's the best closest thing we can get to that? We're thinking about this problem, but we can't really answer that thing. So how could we change a little bit our framework so that we can get a close approximation to that thing? All of these I think are just things that you learn a lot on how to go about a project in general. Because you'll also see a lot of times you think about X and then you end up doing Z because X was poorly defined and then it was a weird thing that you thought was well-defined, and then you talk to people, then you have to change a lot. So in general, I would just say you get exposure to a lot of projects.

(54:32):
Some of them will be exciting to you, some of them probably won't. And that doesn't mean it's a pain to come every day to the office and have to work on a project that you don't really like. I think it's nice because you get the chance to go and learn and talk to people. So I don't know, I think I said the same thing over and over, but in general, I would say that's the way I go about it.

Peter Wilschke (55:00):
Yeah, I personally worked. My pre-doc has been very disjointed for my interests, and I think it's been totally fine. It was sort of an accident of fate that I ended up at the Board. I knew that I wanted to study probably healthcare markets, health insurance, things like that. The Board was zero related to that. Basically no one there does anything related to health economics, understandably. I ended up there because I interned there and they gave me a return offer, and that was it. And the internship was to confirm that I didn't really want to study macro, and I didn't. But it was still a great place to work. I still got to work on projects that, as Roberto was saying, were very useful for developing my technical skills, my understanding of how a research project works. Generally working through the research process and seeing how experienced people do that is very useful.

(55:52):
And so I tried to let it shape my interests a little bit. I tried to get into some of the finance stuff that some of my Economists were working on, and it just never worked out. I tried to get myself if this was something I could do. I read papers, I though about ideas from NSF, and then I was like, "No, I actually just want to study what I thought I'd want to study all along." But they were very supportive of that, and they were able to offer me general advice on my NSF, which I think is the second part of the question, the own research identity development. Writing an NSF proposal was really the way that I was to do that. And I think I'm lucky that the board has a formal NSF mentoring program, which afforded me time and structure to build that agenda.

(56:34):
But even if there's not something quite like that, just talking to your PI, I would be surprised if they weren't very accepting of the fact that you wanted to do something like that and you have your own idea, particularly of course, if you're willing to put time outside of work into it, depending on the level of commitment that you have on a day-to-day basis.

Roberto Gonzalez (56:54):
Yeah.

Stephen Lamb (56:55):
Roberto, Peter?

Roberto Gonzalez (56:57):
Oh, sorry. I'll just add to Peter's answer that people in general, even if your PI does not know a lot about the actual topic they're interested in, they probably know someone who does, and they're super happy to put you in touch with them so that you can ask them questions and stuff like that. So yeah, I'll just add that.

Stephen Lamb (57:18):
Well, Peter, Roberto, Pascal, Vashali, thank you very much for sharing all this wisdom with our audience.