(written September 1, 2020)
This morning, I hopped out of bed before the alarm woke. Dodging the packing boxes and picking up my toothbrush underneath a sponge, I completed a frantic morning ritual and sat down in a hastily cleaned corner to start the first day of class. The room littered with furniture parts and moving boxes–but the webcam faced the wall, so everything was all right.
Fig 1 Messy table on the first day of class
On screen, a professor skimmed over the course outline while trying to get his Wacom to work. It didn’t, so the class ended after 4 example problems. Splendid, I thought, moving onto assembling my workstation and a lunch.
This fall, I start my 1-year masters degree at the University of Alberta to study economics. The decision to go on to
grad school is easy amidst a macro-climate with double digit unemployment rate and a ballooning deficit. With jobs
scarce and security even dimmer, sitting comfortably in front of a monitor and being paid a little to study seems a
steal of an opportunity. Yes, the degree will be online and that is not ideal, but having stayed on with my alma mater put me
in a very familiar environment, one that is way luckier than my classmates who have to start afresh.
But the decision was not without conflict. For me, going to university was supposed to be a transitory phase to get some
study experience and a degree, to finally go out and do things. I was not supposed to be mesmerized by some theories
about how the world works, and not supposed to be feeling happy with being able to solve simplified, sometimes
disconnected, versions of world problems. It was not supposed to be about being content with an occupation that is “student” while
doing nothing while the world crumbles, the learned theories in hand.
In 2020, I graduated into a world with its orders somewhat shaken. The interest rate is at historical low, and markets
are on the tip of the tides. A greater crisis that looms will make many market entries easier than it was in a decade.
This year, many efforts were reverted, but many more opportunities await.
And it’s this year that I am enrolling in grad school.
I made a pact with myself on the doorstep of university that out-there is where I should be: at the helm,
doing things, becoming a transaction point, and at some point moving the market. In a capitalist economy, to be able to
move markets is to be able to change things from the roots and help people. That is my resolve. This belief carried me
to maintaining a job and a foot in the business world through all my undergrad years. Yet, by going to grad school at
this critical time, I felt that I had turned my back to the promise. Yes, in most practical and safety considerations,
starting this masters is a sound decision, but is nevertheless one that I feel ideologically conflicted about.
Fortunately, after logical thinking I found that this inner conflict was ill-founded. While it may not be
true for all cases, going to grad school does not necessarily equal selling oneself out in exchange for a future that looks
safe, nor taking refuge in the ivory towers as the world crumbles. Sure, grad school means that I cannot yet apply my
learnings. But with the onset of the pandemic and the coming crisis, fast and solid learnings became crucial to
tie economic theories to empirics, to news headlines, and to observations of each exchange in the market. Yes,
going out to the world and doing what bits I could at this stage is difficult and therefore inviting. But it is no less
challenging to take a step back and to think hard and real, for the long term, what world order will become under these
economic systems, and being honest to oneself that a long-trusted organisation of the world may not be the long-run
solution. Once we get out on the field, such loftiness is luxury; but schools help us consider before diving in. I therefore
place a high value on education in contributing to self-actualization. (Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?
It is that thing on the top. )
Fig 2 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
More practically, education can lead to learnings that have larger implications on business decisions. I am lucky to have some work experience which taught me that a little bit of certainty can mean drastically different directions that a person/organisation will go. The era in which one relies on experience to analyse the world is gone. Now, the world changes so rapidly that everyone becomes an industry freshman every few years—no one really has experience. Certainty has to be gained from personal relations, or from educated guesses and skilled (quick!) testing of hypotheses. Alberta Einstein said–indeed, he quoted a “wit”—in his 1936 essay On Education, that
Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.
What did “BA (Hons) Economics with minor in Mathematics, First Class Honors” give me? It taught me the fundamentals of
how the world works. Economics has given me a whole new world; and math studies taught me that humans have the capability
to know what is absolutely true. Some things can be so true that they are the very definition of truth.
The requirement for certainty is different between driving and landing a rocket back on the launch pad,
or between making a retail-sized transaction and adjusting the target rate. Entrusted with key responsibilities, some
errors can cost lives. This period of studies in grad school will help me grasp the tools to gain certainty.
I no longer feel conflicted about going to grad school. My infatuation with economics persists, and I feel excited and
privileged to take a year to indulge in it. The craze will enable me to soon make actual impacts, and grad school
will be a worthwhile journey to make.
Written by Natasha. Last edited:2020-09-07 01:24:34