​My sister attended her first in-person conference last week. I was talking to her about preparation etc. and thought maybe I can share some of my experiences in a blog. So here it is - 

1. Professional conferences have many versions. But the typical ones in Economics include three types of presentations: long presentation (18/20 minutes), short presentation (9/10 minutes), and poster. You will have to submit an abstract or a full paper. They may ask you if you have a preference for short presentations or long ones. If the paper is not selected for a full presentation, they may ask you if you want a poster. As a graduate student, I think you should take any chance to attend and present your work. However, be careful about your budget and reimbursement too. 

2. I have attended ASSA conference just to see how big conferences work before I submitted to any conference by myself. It was expensive, but I think the whole experience helped me in the long run. It is a good investment. I also have attended the Heartland Environmental and Resource Economics conference at UIUC multiple times before my own conference presentation. I guess all these helped me to prepare. At the least, I knew what to expect. If you can manage time and money, I suggest you attend conferences before your own talk just to see the system.

3. Presentation: If you are an international student and if you are not coming from an English-medium school, there is a good chance that you feel awkward about saying almost anything. I believe that you can hide your nervousness by spending lots of hours in preparation. Know everything about your slides. Have a mock presentation. Make sure your slides do not have spelling errors. Make sure your slides are readable. Make sure you do not need to read from your slides. Make sure your slides are self-explanatory too. If your slides are perfect, and you are well-prepared, it will be harder for people to ignore your work. 

4. Fashion: I definitely did not have any idea about professional clothing before my first conference. I asked around; some female professors and some senior female colleagues helped. The basics are pretty simple: a formal shirt, a formal pant, shoe, and maybe a blazer if you want. You can try informal dresses too if you are just attending (not as a presenter), but I think you will feel more confident if you are dressed like a professional. These things are expensive, try second-hand shops. You will get nice almost-new stuff. 

5. Notebook: Do not forget the power of a pen and a small notebook. Always have a set with you. There are always ideas, questions, debate around you - you need to keep track. Laptop does not do the trick. 

6. Business Cards: Some senior friends suggested that I get business cards. So, I actually had business cards with me in my first conference. I could not manage to give it to anyone though!

7. It is better to go to your first conference with some friends - fellow graduate students from your school. You will feel less awkward. You can share expenses, and you can attend talks together. 

8. In those open bars, you may feel "nobody wants to talk to me". Actually, I have met some other graduate students from other schools in these conferences who were also feeling awkward, and they are very good friends now. So, try finding other people around your stage, they are going to be your colleagues for a very long time. It is OK if big people do not want to talk to you at this moment! 

9. Sessions: There are normally lots of sessions. Try to attend some big picture sessions - like keynote, panel discussions. These sessions will help you to see where the field is going. Attend some method sessions to learn cutting-edge methods. Make a mixture of sessions to attend. 

10. If you have any particular question to ask to anybody, you can definitely try to set up a coffee meeting. If you want suggestions from some specific experts, it is fine to invite them to listen to your talk. Know how to write cold emails.

11. Question-answer period: Normally, there are 2/3 minutes after every talk where you will get questions from the audience. Ask questions, engage in the discussion. I always find this helpful to learn. If you get a question that you do not know, it is OK to be honest. If you find the answer later, you can send an email to clarify. 

12. Thank you emails: If somebody gave you a good suggestion, it is good to send a note after the conference. 

Well, these are just some things that I learnt in the last five years. Hope this helps! 

Finally, enjoy the conference experience. You will attend your first conference only once! :) 

This is a list of people doing research on areas I am interested in: agriculture, environment, urban - rural regional variation, development. Most of them are "economic historian" by training and specialization (some not). I will keep this list updated! 

Martin Fiszbein

Jacob Moscona 

Rick Hornbeck

Dave Donaldson

Marshal Burke 

Wolfram Schlinker 

Stefano Falcone

Michele Rosenberg 

Johannes Buggle

Federico Masera 

Cory Smith 

I use a CV template that I copied from Prof. Jason Blevins. I find it clear, concise and easy to navigate.

Template

I am writing this post in Applied Micro-ian solidarity!

If you are an early-career grad student wondering around if you can ever settle down with a research question and find a data that can answer that question, I feel you. This is a constant exercise, we get better with experience, and let me share some of my thoughts from my own experience. This post assumes that you want to find a question and fit a data with that question.

How to find data for your first project?

Finding a research question that motivates you, and finding data that has information in that context is one of the toughest task for applied micro students. I am laying out the things I learnt in the way of "failing" to do so. These are probably the steps in sequence:

First, Research Question: field class, discussion with mentor and other professors, reading articles, newspapers, blogs. The blogs I follow for new ideas are linked at "Links" in my website. And, my dissertation adviser (the #Great Prof. Amy Ando) agreed to read some trillion research proposals in five years!

Second, You know the question, at least broadly - how to get a data to answer it. Write the question in 2/3 different ways. Ask your adviser/field course professors to read it and give you feedback.

Third, Now that you know your research question broadly and you have feedback from some specialists, read relevant papers that use similar question. Find which data they used - country, context, time period. Make a list and see those data (you should get a sense of available variables from there).

Fourth, Talk to people who work in that area. They may know about a data in your context. They may know a context or a policy in some country. For my second-year paper, Prof. Arun Agarwal told me Nepal has some new policies regarding the question I was interested in. Read the books from my first post to see how to write cold emails, but do it anyway.

Fifth, Have two options open. Having a back up plan always helps, and I admit that I am not good in plan-B.

Six, Data will be desperately unclean - learn how to clean data. Learn how to spend your whole time with data. My first paper's data was not geocoded, I did it all by myself with the name of the villages. It takes time.

Here are some links and sources that might be helpful. If you have a research question on developing countries:

1) LSMS is probably the first place I will always go. You get a repeated cross sectional data for almost all developing countries. Sometimes they even have panel data. If you are interested in agricultural questions, look at LSMS-ISA.
For most of the countries, it is free. And the World Bank is really great in assisting with data related questions.

2) ICRISAT also provides information on agriculture and poverty for some countries.

3) IFPRI has data on food and agriculture.

4) Demographic and Health Survey: DHS is a great source of information for demography/environmental health questions. It's geocoded. It's freely available.

6) India NSSO data: You have to pay as you go by selecting variables and years.

7) Indonesia: Indonesian PODES data is a great source for economic and environmental questions. Village-level panel and annual data. You need to pay as you go.

For environmental questions, there is an increasing demand for satellite data and geocoded information.

Satellite and Spatial Data

1) Forest cover: Global forest cover data is publicly available from 2000 (here). Use gfcanalysis in R to clean/extract the data.
2) Nightlight: Nighttime light data is also widely used in development economics (here). I have some concern in using it for village-level economic analysis in developing countries. Use Rnightlights in R to clean/extract the data.
3) Admin boundary: You can get admin boundary data and shapefile from GADM for every country (here).
4) Fire: Nearly real-time fire data is available from FIRMS (here).
5) Marine data: Global fish watching data available here.

Bottom Line:

If one thing I learnt and still am learning: don't give up on a research question just because you do not have data right now. If your intuition says it could be something, chase it. It is painful, it is worthy!

Most of us start graduate school with a lot of passion about academia and science, but zero practical knowledge about how it actually works. It takes time to get familiar (and that's fine, we don't have to know everything from our mother's womb :) ).

My first conference presentation was at the end of my third year. Before-after that period, I started to read some books. These books helped me here and there with small tips.

I am listing some books for early-career PhD students. These may help you too if you are not that much familiar with academic professional environment. The books are designed to help in searching for academic jobs, but they provide information on "how to present in a conference", "how to write an email", "how to ask for help (cold email)". Hope it helps!

1) Academic Job Search :

2)Surviving Your Academic Job Hunt: Advice for Humanities PhDs

3) A PhD is not enough

4) The professor is in

5) The portable dissertation adviser 

6) The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research

One of my dissertation chapter was in Microsoft Word document, but the other two were in LaTex format. Well, I did not know how to use LaTex earlier in my graduate school! To compile all three for my dissertation, I converted Microsoft Word document to Tex file. This is the cheat code if any of you are also stuck. It works pretty well.

Use Docx2Latex online converter to get the basic Tex file.
To align, use flushleft from the beginning
Number equations manually. If you do not like table format in this way, use Excel2Latex addin in Excel.
Download the package from here: Excel2Latex
Manually need to change the Table captions.
All the numbering need to be changed. 

For a starter, getting used to LaTex is not easy. This is a template that I use for my papers, you can copy it to Overleaf or any Tex typesetting system to make your own file. 

\documentclass[12 pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{color}
\usepackage{ragged2e}
\usepackage{indentfirst}
\usepackage[a4paper, margin=1 in]{geometry}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{rotating,caption}
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage{placeins}
\usepackage{enumerate}
\usepackage{threeparttable}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{lscape}
\usepackage{flexisym}
\definecolor{EconomicsGray}{RGB}{198,212,225}
\definecolor{EconomicsLightBlue}{RGB}{127,191,192}
\definecolor{EconomicsBlue}{RGB}{0,63,138}
\definecolor{EconomicsDarkBlue}{RGB}{0,63,117}
\usepackage{multirow}
\restylefloat{table}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{lscape}
\usepackage{rotating}
\usepackage[nodisplayskipstretch]{setspace}
\setlength{\parindent}{5ex}
\usepackage[toc,page]{appendix}
\usepackage{amsthm,amssymb}
\renewcommand{\qedsymbol}{\rule{0.7em}{0.7em}}

\usepackage[backend=bibtex, natbib=true, style=authoryear, maxbibnames=99,]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{references.bib}
\renewbibmacro{in:}{}
\usepackage[%
colorlinks=true,%
linkcolor=blue,%
citecolor=blue,%
urlcolor=EconomicsDarkBlue,%
pdfstartview=FitH,%
pdfview=FitH,%
pdfpagemode=UseNone]{hyperref}
\hypersetup{pdftitle={Economics: The Open Access, Open Assessment E-Journal}}
\usepackage{cleveref}[2012/02/15]% v0.18.4;
% 0.16.1 of May 2010 would be sufficient, but what is the exact day?
%\usepackage{bibentry}
%\pagestyle{myheadings}
\crefformat{footnote}{#2\footnotemark[#1]#3}
\usepackage[bottom]{footmisc}
\usepackage{fixltx2e}
%\usepackage{floatrow}
%\floatsetup[table]{capposition=top}
% Define font for hyperlinks
\def\UrlFont{\normalfont}
\usepackage{tikz}
\floatstyle{plaintop}
\restylefloat{table}
% Some fine-tuning of layout
\usepackage{microtype}
\usepackage{lscape}
\usepackage{footnote}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subcaption}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[labelformat=parens,labelsep=quad, skip=3pt]{caption}

\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.15}


\begin{document}
%\tableofcontents

    \begin{titlepage}
       
        \title{Title\thanks{Acknowledge for help}}
        
        \author{Your Name\thanks{PhD Candidate. Contact: Your Email}}
        \date{\today}   
        \maketitle

        \begin{abstract}
            \singlespacing
                %need to be 100 words, currently 169 words
            \noindent  \\
            \vspace{0in}\\
            \noindent\textbf{Keywords:} \\
            \vspace{0in}\\
            \noindent\textbf{JEL Codes:} \\
            
            \bigskip
        \end{abstract}
        \setcounter{page}{0}
        \thispagestyle{empty}
    \end{titlepage}
    \pagebreak \newpage
    
    \doublespacing
    
\newpage 
\section{Introduction}

\doublespacing

\setlength{\parindent}{5ex}

\section{Next Section} \label{sec:Background} 

\subsection{If you have subsection}


\section{Conclusion}

\clearpage

\newgeometry{margin=.75 in}
\section{Figures and Tables}



%\begin{figure}[H]
%\centering
%\caption{Any Caption(\textdollar 2009)}
%\par\medskip
%\includegraphics [width=16cm] {Put the file here}
%\caption*{Note: }   
%\end{figure} 



\restoregeometry
\printbibliography

\end{document}

Steps

When to start?

1. The earlier the better, of course! Keep enough time to adjust the school list.
2. Some schools have deadline as early as last week of November, e.g. Ohio State University (ARE). If you are planning for those schools, need to compile everything lot earlier.
   1. Lots of schools have two deadlines, later one without funding. Be careful.

 
Things you will need

1. Transcript
2. GRE score
3. SOP
4. 3 Reference Letters
5. CV
6. Writing sample (Not that every school will ask for a sample, but it’s better to send one!)

 
Statement of Purpose (SOP) Matters

1. Applied Economics program mostly offer RAship, so SOP will matter.
2. Take time to write SOP. DON’T start at the last moment. Do some research on how to write SOP. Some schools have format, get idea from those. Keep at least one month in hand to make different adjustment in writing.
3. Thousand SOP templates are available online, you can get basic ideas from those. But don’t copy anything- Admission committee also has access to internet!
   1. Focus on your strength, don’t apologize for your weak side (Like ”I got a B because....” Who cares?). There can be special cases though.
   2. Try to make some links between your research ideas and current literature. Don’t put 4/5 ideas together. Stick to one or two. Name those specific professors you want to work with. And, don’t put names randomly. Do some good research on their current work and specialization.
   3. Some schools have their own restriction on pages. Otherwise, you may try to be in 2 pages.
      1. Don’t put your course list in SOP. They have your transcript.
      2. Focus on the research experience, whatever you have. That’s important.
      3. If you have teaching experience, put that too.
      4. Why and how do your ideas and experience fit in that school?
   4. A rough sketch would probably look like- 1/2 para on your motivation, 3/4 para on your research ideas and experience, 1 para on ”why this school”, ”why these professors” and ”why you”.
   5. If you can manage, talk to some professors about SOP (show them what you have written and get feedback!).

 
Urch and gradcafe

Follow Urch and Gradcafe from June-July of the year. It will give a clear idea of the applicant pool.
I don’t know if there is any new forum!
Links: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/
http://www.urch.com/forums/forum.php
 
Real Analysis? Good to have a class on Real Analysis. 

Reference Letter

Talk to 3/4 professors from August/September.
Talk to those professors who know you well, and will take some time to write.
Professors are busy, don’t ”order” them 15 different reference letters at the end of December.
Share the whole school list with them, and take their suggestions seriously.
 
Take Time

Every single application form will take 3/4 hours. Some will ask weird things, so take time. No rush!
If you are confused on any requirement, ask the admission office. Don’t guess. International students, check if they have extra requirements.

Program Ranking

Get the basic idea from IDEAS, but mostly ranking is not important, I think. A better strategy would be searching through your interest-specific journals. Go through the recent AAEA/AERE sessions (you can read accepted papers online), working papers of current grad students will show a better signal.
Link: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.agr.html https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.env.html
 
Diversify Risk

Yes, it’s expensive, time consuming and frustrating. Make a balanced list. If you want to apply 7/8 schools, take 3/4 from top, 2/3 from medium, and 1/2 schools should be sure shot.

GPA and GRE

What is the lower bound?
There is definitely no lower or upper bound, except that some schools explicitly say, ”we want ***”. This chance is low. However, there is an acceptable range! A good quantitative score will help a  lot. 

Some schools put average GRE score of their accepted pool. You can get good ideas from those, Urch and Gradcafe are also helpful in this regard. Ask people who recently get admission in good programs to get an idea. My only point is: if you want to get a PhD, low GRE score or low CGPA should not stop you. Those scores are not reflecting your intellectual capability. 

Online Resource 

A nice online resource on application process: http://chrisblattman.com/about/contact/gradschool/
​
Bottom line Try to focus on your strength. Everybody has comparative ad- vantage in something, use that.
*All comments are my own. Suggestions are welcome: howlade2@illinois.edu
​