Flourishing in the First Year - Part III. Resources
Overview
In my previous posts, I referenced many organizational tools I created to help streamline my studying. In this post, I share some thoughts about resources available to first year students and links to all of the tools I created.
Resources
I think the most important resources I leveraged in my first year were:
- Peers: Whenever I faced challenges with any content, the first thing I did was turn to someone in my office or study group for support.
- Upper year students: I found it very helpful to speak to second year students for immediate support on general advice regarding how they navigated first year. I also benefited from speaking to some 3rd, 4th, and 5th year students about their research. Going to the internal seminars of students on the job market or students sharing early stage research ideas was also very inspiring in helping me grasp what I want to achieve.
- TAs: We were very lucky to have TAs for our first year courses. I would go to their office hours for specific questions about particular problems or concepts I thought were too basic to ask professors.
- Professors: Office hours were extremely helpful. I learned a lot from the questions my peers asked and from the ways in which professors reframed content for me. All professors were open and welcoming to meet at social events and in one-on-one meetings.
- Admin team: It was very nice that we were onboarded and put in email contact with some administrators. Whenever I had logistical questions, I knew who to contact and always had my questions answered.
In later years, I know that there are a lot more resources available through the graduate center and department to support research.
Tools
I am very obsessed with organization and found the following tools very useful:
- iPad + Notability: I had spoken to many PhD students and they all recommended I get an iPad. And I highly recommend it if you can. I was a bit skeptical at first because I had always taken paper notes. But I got a “paperlike” screen protector, which made it feel similar to writing on paper. I used Notability to organize my notes. I was able to divide sections based on which quarter it was and create sections by class, just like I would do with binders, so everything was very organized. Others I know used GoodNotes and also liked it. I enjoyed taking notes on my iPad because:
- I could export all notes as PDFs to Google Drive directly, which made it easier for me to reference while studying
- I could download past exams and problems and write directly on those PDFs
- I could download slides and lecture notes and annotate them directly. This was especially useful if there were example problems or equations that would be too painstaking to copy (ex: complicated game trees)
- I could copy-and-paste and move things around within and across files easily - this made it easier to remain neat and organized during fast-paced lectures
- It was lighter to carry around than a bunch of binders
- It made teaching much easier - I could use the laser pointer tool in section to emphasize certain content and teach in a more “live” way
- It was more environmentally sustainable (judging by how many pages I wrote from note-taking and studying for exams, I definitely saved some trees!)
- Google Drive: I relied heavily on our cohort’s Google Drive. We had been given access to some Google Drive folders created by members of older cohorts. Throughout the year, members of our cohort moved relevant files from previous years to our drive, uploaded PDF versions of useful textbooks, and added material from our current classes (problem sets, problem set solutions, exams, exam solutions). A few folks who made study guides (including myself) uploaded those to the drive as well. For exams we didn’t have solutions for, we sometimes coordinated as a cohort, divided problems, and uploaded our own solutions to divide and conquer. It was very helpful to have all reference material centralized in one drive.
- WhatsApp group: Someone in our cohort set up a WhatsApp chat for us during the summer before our first quarter. It proved to be extremely useful throughout the year. We did use it to share birthday wishes and coordinate social events, but we mainly used it as a forum for sharing information. We also used the polling feature to vote on times the entire cohort could meet for negotiating full-cohort meetings with faculty. I really appreciated having the group as there were often reminders posted about specific deadlines or links people shared to important information.
Specific resources & examples
In the spirit of publishing public goods, I would like to share some of the study tools I created and described in previous posts.
Study Guides
As mentioned earlier, these study guides are very basic and foundational. They are not deep-dives into all applications of a concept, because there can be many! Rather, I tried to isolate the base models we learned and compare/contrast topics. I found these guides very helpful to make and helpful to review (especially when wanting to study models for prelims after many months of not thinking about them!). I decided not to type these guides out on Latex because I wanted to provide an example of some raw and realistic study guides created during the school year. I have no idea if they will be helpful, but if they can be, I am happy to share them! The guides are organized as follows:
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| A link to the study guide that will redirect to Google Drive | A description of some of the topics covered. Even if the content isn't helpful, hopefully these descriptions give a flavor of the types of topics/models covered. |
Below are the guides!
Microeconomic Theory
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Preferences & Utility | Chapters 1 and 2 of Mas-Collel, Whinston, and Green's Microeconomic Theory textbook. Types of preference relations and relationships to representable utility functions. Key theorems. |
| Revealed Preference | Weak Axiom of revealed preferences. Strong Axiom of revealed preferences. General Axiom of revealed preferences. |
| Walrasian Demand | Chapter 2 of Mas-Collel, Whinston, and Green's Microeconomic Theory textbook. Budget sets. Comparative statics. |
| Consumer theory | Chapter 3 of Mas-Collel, Whinston, and Green's Microeconomic Theory textbook. Utility maximization and expenditure minimization. Integrability. Welfare analysis. |
| Aggreggation | Chapter 4 of Mas-Collel, Whinston, and Green's Microeconomic Theory textbook. Aggregate demand. Representative consumer. Key propositions. |
| Producer theory | Chapter 5 of Mas-Collel, Whinston, and Green's Microeconomic Theory textbook. Production sets. Profit maximization and cost minimization. |
| Uncertainty | Chapter 6 of Mas-Collel, Whinston, and Green's Microeconomic Theory textbook. Expected utility theory. Risk attitudes. |
| Competitive Equilibrium | Equilibrium in an exchange vs. production economy. Finding competitive equilibrium. Walras's Law. |
| ADR Equilibrium | Contingent markets equilibrium (Debreu). Elementary securities equilibrium (Arrow). Financial Markets equilibrium (Radner) |
| Normative Analysis | First fundamental theorem of welfare economics. Second fundamental theorem of welfare economics. |
| Market Failures | Key market failures: externalities, non-competitive behavior, public goods, incomplete markets. Key solution methods: pigouvian taxes, consumption permits, Lindahl equilibrium. |
| Strategic form games | Dominance in games. Nash equilibrium. Cournot Equilibrium. Bertrand Equilibrium. |
| Extensive form games | Games with perfect vs. imperfect information. Games with probabilistic outcomes. Mixed strategies. Backwards Induction. Subgame-perfect-equilibrium. |
| Weak Sequential Equilibrium | Pure strategy and mixed strategy weak sequential equilibrium. |
| Knowledge | Knowledge and common knowledge. Incomplete information. Harsanyi transformation. Common priors. |
| Insurance | Monopoly vs. perfect competition. Perfect information vs. imperfect information. |
| Bundling | One bundle vs. two bundles depending on consumer types. |
Macroeconomic Theory
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Dynamic Programming | Euler's equations and Bellman equations. Continuous vs. discrete time. Social Planner's problem, Arrow-Debreu equilibrium, Sequential markets equilibrium. |
| Endowments | Equilibrium prices and allocations for Arrow-Debreau and sequential markets equilibrium. Deterministic and stochastic cases. |
| Recursive Competitive Equilibrium | Defining and solving for a recursive competitive equilibrium. |
| Job search | McCall model. Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model. Exogenous and endogenous job destruction. |
| Lucas Tree Asset Pricing | Certaintry and stochastic environment. |
| Kiyotaki-Wright | Value functions. Equilibrium. |
| Lagos-Wright | Decentralized vs. centralized market value functions. Solving the bargaining problem under Kalai bargaining vs. Take-it-or-leave-it bargaining. Finding steady state equilibrium. |
| Markov Chains | Conditional probabilities. Unconditional vs. conditional expectations. Stationary distributions. |
| Neoclassical Growth | Deterministic vs. stochastic growth. Solution methods: guess and verify, value function iteration, linearization. |
| Real Business Cycles | Centralized vs. decentralized. Detrended model. Balanced growth. Steady state. Extensions: indivisible labor, capital utilization, habit persistence. |
| Fiscal Policy | Ricardian equivalence. Optimal borrowing. Impacts of government spending on consumption and output. |
| Monetary Policy | Real block vs. nominal block. Monetary neutrality. Taylor rule and Friedman rule. |
| New Keynesian Model | Calvo pricing. Three equation model: dynamic IS curve, New-Keynesian Phillips curve, monetary policy. |
| Optimal policy | Distortions. Discretionary vs. commitment policies. |
| Net worth channel | Two-period model between entrepreneurs and financiers. |
| Moral hazard | Contract problem between entrepreneurs and financiers. |
| Overlapping Generations Model | Two-period model in an exchange vs. production economy |
| Financial Accelerator | Model with net worth - with and without frictions. |
| Fire sales | Bernanke & Gertler. Lorenzoni. |
| Insurance | Holmstrom & Tirole. Two cases: perfect foresight vs. risk. Inside vs. outside liquidity. |
Econometric Theory
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Probability & counting | Key formulas and properties. |
| Random variables | Discrete vs. continuous variables. Transformations. Different distributions. Bivariate distributions. |
| Asymptotic theory | Law of large numbers and central limit theorem. Delta method. Continuous mapping theorem. |
| Statistical modeling | Maximum likelihood estimation. Hypothesis testing. Interval testing. |
| Conditional expectations | Conditional expectation function & linear projections. Causal model. |
| Ordinary Least Squares | Assumptions. Matrices. Properties. |
| Testing | Key statistics: T-stat, Wald-stat, F-stat, Haussman-stat. Types of errors. Power. |
| Bootstrapping | Confidence intervals. T-statistics. Sampling approaches: parametric, non-parametric, wild. |
| Time series | Asymptotic theory. Trends/non-stationarity. |
| M-estimation | Consistency. Identification. |
| Nonlinear estimation | M-estimation for non-linear estimation. Asymptotic normality. |
| Binary choice | Probit vs. Logit. |
| Instrumental Variable | Identification. 2SLS. Asymptotics. |
| Generalized Method of Moments | Identification. Tests. |
| Panel Data | Key models: strict exogeneity, Haussman-Taylor, Arellano-Bond, Blundell-Bond. |
I hope that these guides serve as a helpful example of ways to think about breaking down the fundamental concepts of each topic/model you learn. I have no idea if the content will be helpful, but if it is - great! If anyone finds any mistakes or has suggestions for any guide, please email me.
Preliminary Exams Organizer
I found it extremely lucrative to organize my preparations for preliminary exams. These exams were cumulative and we could be asked anything! That is a lot of material: past prelim exams, past finals, past midterms, and past problems to review.
I wanted to ensure that I had a direction with my studying - I did not want to be in a situation in which I would sit down for a prelim and realize I missed studying something. I knew I would have regrets if I did. So I made a big planning sheet.
Here is the prelims planning spreadsheet I used (as an example). The tabs are:
- Topics: I categorized concepts and models we learned into broader themes. I organized them by quarter and subject (Macro/Micro/Metrics).
- Micro, Macro, Metrics: I organized all of the past problem sets, midterms, finals, and prelims I had access to by topic. I highlighted the past prelims to emphasize them. I included a column in which I could take notes on my experience solving the question, which I later referenced if I wanted to re-attempt a challenging problem of a particular topic/theme/model. These sheets really helped me streamline and prioritize my studying.
- Timeline: I created a timeline in which I could divide up which days I wanted to focus on which topics. The numbering was consistent to the numbering I assigned problems in the Micro/Macro/Metrics tabs. I was not able to fully stick to this during the school year. But I did stick to it during the month of preliminary exams.
Once I was in the prelims month period, I didn’t add comments or note down the other attempts of solving questions on the Google Sheet. I just used it to navigate what to study!
Midterm/Final Exams Organizer
This is an example of a google sheet I used to study for midterm exams. 2 weeks prior to exams, I created a timeline for myself, and coordinated with a few people who wanted to do group studying to divide and conquer solving some past exams.
Contents
Jump to the other parts:
- Reflections: This post describes some practical tips I have for finding academic success and feeling socially connected.
- Routines: This post shares some examples of routines I found were important to develop and maintain.
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