First year PhD students in economics: first year is hard for many of us. You may be thinking about quitting. It’s your life, friend, but let me give you a few tips of advice. First, you should try to calculated expected utility from staying for four more years vs leaving. 1/n

Force yourself, in other words, to make the decision based on present and future EXPECTED consumption and utility. Many of you are not doing that. Rather, you are lonely, miss your family and friends, and feel like macro is kicking your butt 2/m

When you leave bc it’s hard, you aren’t making the decision based on utility comparisons. Highly speculative but the exercise can force you into a more peaceful rational place. In poker, you fold when you think you’ve lost to minimize losses. Are you sure you’ve lost though? 3/n

The second thing is we are in a horrible recession. Unemployment is high. So when calculating EXPECTED utility from leaving the program, remember you may be exiting into a dismal market. And it won’t improve until several months after we get a vaccine. 4/n

So why don’t you wait a year? The vaccine likely won’t come out til mid 2021. Just wait and see bc right now you’re getting paid. They’re paying you to learn economics. Yes. Macro is hard. Econometrics is hard. Micro is hard. “This isn’t why I wanted to become an economist!” 5/n

Don’t worry. Trust those of us who are on the other side — these courses are worth it. You’re learning the frontier of economics. Think how lucky you are. Yes, it’s hard, but you’re learning! You’ll pass the prelims too. Remember — it’s math. You get what you put in. 6/n

And on the side of first year coursework are the field courses. Labor, public, development, IO, macro, environmental. You’re going to eat it up, I promise. For some of you, these are applied courses. You’ll love them; the hairs on your will sometimes stand up as you learn. 7/n

So, in my opinion, you aren’t sufficiently informed to leave the program. And besides, why would you want to enter into this garbage marker right now? You got in! Wait 18 months and then reevaluate okay? Trust me — it’s math. You get what you put in. 8/8