Website Shout-Out: Study Hacks

Since we're in the season of countless papers, projects, finals and deadlines that seem to be creeping up (out of nowhere really), over-caffeinated students with bloodshot eyes and irritable behavior is quite the norm. Even if you're not one of them, it can be hard to distance yourself from the pack and not feel like you're doing something wrong if you've been getting more than 4 hours of sleep this past days.

Enters Study Hacks, a blog maintained by Cal Newport, the author of "How to become a Straight-A Student" and various other guides through the maze of college life and student productivity.

I've recently discovered this blog and I've enjoyed reading his advice because:
1. He's a student himself, and wrote his book as someone who was recently an undergraduate student.

2. He went to Dartmouth, so he can understand how much the pressure can build up when you put overachieving students together in a cold place ;)

3. I just got back on my tests, after using one of his tips, Quiz and Recall, to study, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Why should you check it out?

1. It's completely relevant: For all the Economics PAM students have to take, his technique break-down on how to study for technical classes is priceless!
2. All his posts are easily readable and understandable
3. He gets students...

So, Go ahead and check it out. Learn a few tips (and get some sleep!)

Website Shout-Out: One Day, One Internship

There are some websites out there that are worth knowing about. So, we're going to take some time out every now and then, to acknowledge and highlight them. It's our way of sharing the proverbial wealth.

Here's one you probably already know about, but we thought we'd mention them anyway because:
1. Their mission is excellent
2. The author's a Cornell Grad ;)

If you don't know know about One Day, One Internship, it's about time that you do. The mission of this website is to do just what the name says: highlight one internship a day. They scour websites for companies, groups' mission and internship positions, which they post on their blog. They also show you how to go about applying. Pretty Sweet!

And if you're at that time when you're looking for a first real job, they have One Day, One Job that's just as helpful!

* Hint* *Hint* They feature many internships related to Public Policy.

So, Go check'em out, and let your friends know too!

Advice to Students: From Greg Mankiw's blog

Education Beyond the Classroom

A student emails me a question about my experiences outside the classroom:

Dear Professor Mankiw,I'm a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, about to start Econ 001. I know it's important to get an academic background in economics, but I think some of the best learning I've done in most fields has come outside of the classroom. I was wondering if you could tell me about some of the key moments in your intellectual development as an economist, and where these moments took place. My goal here is to figure out how I can supplement my Econ education with real-world schooling.Thanks for reading this.

[name withheld]Here are a few of the jobs I had while a student and what they meant to me:
Furie Sailing. The summer between high school and college, I had a minimum-wage job working at a family-run business that rented small sailboats to tourists and gave private sailing lessons to novices. It was edifying to see a small business up close.

I also got my first taste of teaching.Research Assistant to Harvey Rosen. For one summer while at Princeton, I worked as a research assistant to Harvey Rosen, then an assistant professor, who had taught me Principles of Microeconomics. Harvey is a great guy and a terrific mentor.

That experience put me on the road to becoming a professional economist.Congressional Budget Office. I spent two summers as an intern in the macro group of the CBO. It was my first taste of how economic analysis could be applied to public policy.Law firm.

After one year of law school, I spent a summer as a summer associate at a law firm, working mostly on issues of tax law. It gave me the opportunity to observe the life of a practicing lawyer and helped me decide that I did not want to spend my career as one.Council of Economic Advisers.

In 1982-83, during the first Reagan administration, I took a year off of grad school to work on the junior staff of the CEA. Martin Feldstein was the CEA chair. The other two members were Bill Poole and Bill Niskanen. The senior staff included Paul Krugman and Larry Summers, with whom I worked most closely. This experience presaged my later return as CEA chairman in 2003.

Looking back, there are various experiences I missed that would have been useful. For example, I have never worked in a financial institution or a large for-profit corporation, as my father did for most of his working life. (I am not counting my "employment" as a textbook author for two for-profit publishers or the small amount of consulting work I did for Microsoft during its antitrust case.) I have never lived overseas for more than a few weeks at a time. I have not spent much time in less developed countries.

As a general rule, I encourage students to use summer jobs as a time of experimentation. You can work in different types of organization to see what type fits your own tastes and talents. And even if you know where you want to end up, experiencing other parts of the world will give you a broader perspective and deeper understanding of how the world works.

The Stereotypical PAM major

I thought long and hard about what the first entry should be about. It seems appropriate to introduce the major and talk a little bit about the students. To start, the acronym, PAM, is something that remains a mystery to all, except for people in the college of Human Ecology, or people who know someone who is a PAM major.

So, what is PAM? Policy Analysis and Management. It's not all Policy, It's not all Analysis, and only some take Management classes. So, how do PAM students explain it when their friends, family, and prospective employers ask? PAM is a major that provides students with qualitative and quantitative skills necessary to excel in any field. The PAM department's website describe it as a program that teach students to " integrate analytical thinking, research and data analysis skills, and policy implementation strategies to understand the effects of public and private policies on people's lives".

So, essentially, PAM is a major about understanding the intersection between the government, our society and the private sector. It is not surprising, then, that no two PAM majors are alike. Every person is interested in a different part of this equation, the public sector, the society or the private sector. This makes for very interesting discussions, once you get into a discussion with a couple of students.

No matter how different we are, there are few things that unite us. We learn to read research, and stay up for days writing our own research papers. We're taught to never, ever trust any study we come across in the news. We ask questions like "How large was the sample size of the study?" and never say "cause" but "correlate". We grumble about the opportunity cost of our time, and say things like "This is a very inefficient way to do this".

It might not be quickly evident what PAM majors do, but one thing is sure: they are preparing to be tomorrow's leaders.

Hello, Everyone!

From now on, PAMO is taking off in the blogosphere! So, we'll posting information about PAM, PAMO, which is the student organization mainly composed of Policy Analysis and Management students at Cornell, and any other things that might interest students that do things related to PAM.

Look for interesting articles, internships, news, tips, etc.