The First Year in retrospect

/**Part of it was written on April 28, another part on June 12, I edited and finished it on Sept. 18.**/

When the winter term ended, I wrote down the following words:

"I am not sure whether it is more proper to call today or August 20th the last day of the first year. I don't have the mood to celebrate, I only hope there won't be any "ex post" worry about 672. But I can't help imagining, and planning my summer. It may be the most stressful summer ever in my life. But just because it will be busy and stressful, I should try to enjoy myself, live a disciplined life and get things done, and feel proud for myself more often."

But as it turned out, my summer was pretty bad. Boring SRA work, though I worked for a terrific scholar and terrific mentor. Running into an interpersonal nightmare was not fun. I left behind such a bomb in summer 2008, and I paid an unmeasurable price for that. Hopefully this time it won't be like that, I hope there won't be so many narrow-minded people, but only future will tell. But on the other hand, there are important lessons: you can never be too be humble, and too patient. Being a scholar is less independent than most people think. Your research depends so much on the bureaucracy and people around you, many of whom not so easy to please, or you simply don't like. But you have to get around them. ....

The worst may be my depression. The vicious circle of doing nothing, using Internet to fill the void, and feeling guilty, being afraid to reach out and meet people, etc. On one of those worst days, I finally decided to do something, and I went to the CCRB. And accidentally, I talked with one stranger in a group. I couldn't recall which one, and I couldn't remember I went to talk with him first or he came to talk with me. I am now friends with them, at least some of them. I went to their "life group", and some other church activities. Unfortunately I just went to the Sunday service once, and I didn't go to Lake Huron with them for July 4th holiday. But still, I feel really grateful for that totally random encounter. It gets me some really good friends with whom I believe I can have lots of interesting conversations. And it gets me a really good training partner. I remember the sheer joy of spending time with them would soon be overcome by the loneliness again. And I still didn't really find the motivation, and long-lasting joy from doing meaningful work until the "prelim pressure" overshadowed my mind. But on the other hand, I feel really really good and proud that I restarted bodybuilding/workout, or as they say, lifting. Equally significantly, it opens a window for me. I am talking about Christianity. More on that later.

The summer ended on high notes though. The prelim review was stressful, meaningful, fruitful, and in retrospect, successful. Started later than planned, progressed really inefficiently and slowly for a long time, it got its momentum short after July 4th. I remember I realize how much work I had to do, or how much I hadn't understood, in days leading to the July 4th holiday. And through the 40-days-or-so of overall intensive work, I felt my level of understanding of the modern macro foundation, and its mechanics, price theory, general equilibrium and game theory, really improved significantly. In those days, I always thought "Gosh! This is what I should have understood/got when I studied this. What was I doing?", and "I might just get what some already got or understood seven, eight months ago, of course they don't need to study much, if at all, now". And today, I still wouldn't say I am confident about getting everything the first year education should give me, all the knowledge underlying the problems (classic theory, the core theoretical understanding of economics). But at least I know, I went through a lot of things, and I should meet a lot of situations and realize, or recall, "I have done this before".

I passed both theory prelims, the first of many hurdles en route to a professional economist. My closest friends got what they deserved too. But there are surprises, on "both sides". Maybe just as one friend says, "if there is no surprise, it is not an 'exam'". Exams, just like big sports events, are cruel.

The title says, "the first year in retrospect". I shouldn't just talk about the summer, but days further back. The typical one-liner description is "the first year is tougher than I expected", and definitely not satisfactory. It started with a strange sense of indifference and boredom that could be explained by tremendous psychological trauma and fear left from the application days (the first half of 2009), and the strange feeling of being a "host" and old guy here.

Jim encouraged me in the beginning of the year to go to as many seminars as I could. I felt regretful not to follow his advice, as I still feel illiterate about the fields I am definitely interested in.

The core courses were poorly scheduled, especially in the first term. On Mondays and Wednesdays we had class from 8.30 to 10 and then 10-11.30. In the second term, we also had a 8.30 class--macro II. It is firmly in my opinion that such arrangements, along with the 8-10 A.M. finals, put students at disadvantage, unnecessarily so. But of course, the main point here is not to complain, but to confess: I didn't really try hard to match the schedule, go to sleep early to have my brain function optimally, or "normally" during class time. I always felt that if my brain felt good in the first class (metrics I), it would feel drained in the second class. Sometimes I was almost asleep in the first class, but felt much better in the second. Later in the term, I began to skip a lot of metrics lectures, because I couldn't get up that early. That per se didn't do much damage as I knew all those things before. But the "staying up late-->no energy for morning classes-->spend lots of time understanding the notes" vicious circle was what I hated the most, and I should confess the most deeply.

I really couldn't explain why I just didn't want to go to bed, even if I felt so tired and dizzy at mid-night or 1 A.M., and I wasn't there studying. I couldn't really explain, or tell what I was doing in late night: some meaningless light readings, the compulsion of checking news, tennis sites over and over, and something unspeakable. I tried to analyze it, but I realize that may get me additional troubles. Because as I think about it, like now, I feel that it is so easy to get to that "don't-want-to-get-to-sleep" mode, no matter you've had a good day, a productive day, an exhausting day, or a bad day. It is not easy for people to control their emotional flows, their mood, and people feel guilty too easily. It is sad and frustrating to realize these. To live a disciplined and responsible life, and be happy and motivated most of the time, is not easy. There seems nothing to prevent me from falling into the self-inflicted dizzy and low-productivity spiral. A good mix of working, reading, building muscles, and having good time with friends will keep me in the good state most of the time, which is more than I can ask for.

A few lines on specific regrets:
For 601 (decision theory), I definitely overlooked it. I could feel the insufficient practice on those materials every frequently, even now in the first two weeks of the second year.

On Lones, his course seemed loose and easy-going, you don't need to do work on regular basis and still could enjoy the lectures. But you were not actually REALLY enjoying it, or connecting with him, if you didn't do the work. He actually expected us to do a lot of work, the standard materials, and his own materials as well.

For 603 (general equilibrium), I learned the whole thing in late July and early August on my own. You can imagine how bad I felt about the me during those months and how proud I was after "being enlightened".

For 604 (mechanism design), I am not confident if I really got it. But maybe I wouldn't need those things too much in the future.

People say D.Stol is a nice person and a helpful mentor. I found him a little intimidating and not very easy to understand. But he asked for basic understanding and hard work, things I am not bad at. :) CH is a really good teacher. I regret for not putting enough time into the papers he mentioned, because of the distractions from history. But I think the course would be a better one if he could move through the "consumption" and "investment" more quickly and spent more time on RBC and the subsequent materials. I am sure he has a lot to say about "sticky price models", "real vs nominal rigidities" etc.

All in all, two lessons about all these first-year class mess: 1) I stayed up late, sometimes till 4 or 5 A.M. for no reason (can be attributed to stress and depression maybe?); 2) I didn't study enough outside the classroom. That resulted in not being able to follow the lectures very well. And that frustration translated to less and less motivation.

The economic history class was a totally different story. That was definitely the highlight of this year, curriculum-wise. Not only did I get the only "A" in this year in that class, but I felt I really learned a lot, though, honestly, I didn't read all the required readings. The professor is gentle, humble, encouraging, and extremely knowledgeable. I like his style. It takes talent, perseverance, patience and years of accumulation, talent to reach his level I think. And he seems to suggest that the environment has changed so much that we won't be trained to become that type of scholar. I am not sure that is a progress or a loss. I did a little Russian wheat project for that class. Judging by its "preliminary" report, it was downright ugly. I realize that it is really hard to form a logical structure to proceed and get things done within a pretty limited amount of time. But I think that will be still in the back of my mind. I will go back to that when I have time.

Lastly, I must say that my classmates were impressive, they are more than I expected. I really should have more eye-opening conversations with them.

I decided to run into finishing this article as I felt empty, void, and sort of depressed again coming back from Ma Lin's mid-autumn party. There are lots more to say, like the Clio Conference, my indebtedness to Lin, Ji, Bob and Jim, the valuable friendships with Taejun and Changkeun and a few other classmates, good conversations with lots of classmates etc, but I'd better stop here. As tomorrow is there waiting for me to embrace!