"We really are all Romans aren't we?" or "I don't think he got the job."

I remember a story my dad once told me (one of the few trial stories of his that I remember) about one day in the court house downtown. He had apparently finished his work there (or maybe this opportunity was too good to pass up), when he heard that a certain judge was ripping a certain lawyer a new one in one of the court rooms. The word spread, and soon lawyers, clerks, and other spectators were quietly filtering into the room to witness this horrifyingly humorous event. Amid the stifled chuckles of the legal elite, a friend of my dad's turned to him and whispered something like, "We really are all Romans aren't we?" (For those of you don't get it, look up the coliseum). Point being, we do enjoy a good massacre, be it literal or verbal.

Which brings me to the second seminar/job interview for a gaggle of hopeful professors, being recruited by our department. I missed the first, but it was apparently a young Chinese woman, who in the end had to have one of our professors (the great econometrics guru of the department who's finally -thank God- back from sabbatical), answer the questions she was being asked. Whether this was due to language difficulties, or just that he knew the theory better than she did was not clear. Most of us are pretty sure though that she did not get the job. The second one I did go to, which brings us to our one little Roman display.

The candidate was a Yale graduate, teaching at a prestigious school back east which shall remain un-named (I hear they have an excellent medical program, but their econ department is iffy). The first problem came with the fact that he was a macroeconomist (and thus title his paper with "macroeconomics" in it), but he was however presenting a paper on Bayesian estimation within macro, which is more econometrics (and a fairly controversial branch at that). All the Bayesian analysis was apparenlty done by the other guy who wrote the paper (or so I have heard). I will spare you most of the details (except the highlights), but the analogous scene that followed is that of a gladiator getting mauled by half a dozen lions. I'll start with the German lion...
The paper simplified (for the sake of argument) international monetary policy to two entities: the US (home) and Europe (foreign). This of course, simplified the argument greatly, but left a sour taste in the mouth of one of our German International Trade profs, who asked, "So how do you feel about simplifying the entirety of the European economy into one single entity, as if they are the same?"
The Yale boy licked his lips (ew), chuckled, and said, "Well I don't lose any sleep over it." Let me also point out that the Yale boy had a German accent.
After a few seconds of very uncomfortable silent staring between the two of them, the Yale boy finally went on to explain why the simplification is "justified", by the fact that even before the formation of the EU, most European monetary policy (not fiscal mind you, but purely monetary), was decided by a German bank, and followed more or less voluntarily by countries such as France, Spain, and Italy. He then tried to connect with the German prof on some sort of "homeland" level, by quipping, "The Italians basically did what we told them to." ... and then followed a very creepy laugh from both of them. I swear I heard marching and bombs dropping in the background. But the idea of German brotherhood did little to save the Yale boy.
The next big hit to his paper came from our favorite Micro prof, who was probably the most ornery of them when he asked the Yale boy how the economies of the US and the EU could be described as a "small sample". At that point all the graduate students in the back row woke up (myself included) to basically enjoy the ensuing massacre of the rest of the paper. If only we'd brought popcorn...
At the last twenty minutes, the four main attackers (the German and three Indians) finally let up to at least let the Yale boy finish as much of his contrite, unrealistic, and mathematically unsound contribution to the world of economics (as if there wasn't enough of that). They instead kept whispering to each other and giggling like twelve year old school girls. Our deptartment chair, at first seemed a bit embarrassed by the pummeling, but after the first half finally started chuckling himself.
The seminar finally ended, and the Yale boy limped away back in to the department to get the individual reviews from the entire faculty (which couldn't have been pleasant), while the grad students managed to hold in their laughter until we got back down to the study room.
I don't think he got the job.
We still have two more candidates. One from NYU (or Columbia?) and one from Harvard. From what I've heard the New York guy has promise. A few of the grad students have actually read the paper (now there's a shocker), and think he's going to do well. This is of course pure speculation.

Considering how ruthlessly some of our professors (my micro professor last semester especially) tore into this paper, it made me wonder how he got this far in the interview process. But then I remember the key to Ivy League schools. It doesn't matter for the first few steps what kind of work you do if you graduated from Yale, Harvard, Princeton, or wherever. But it is nice to know that at some point, some one will call BS on it.

I also witnessed the thesis defense of one of our fifth years. The research was sound, the questions were good, but it did not go well. I think their worst mistake was the choice of advisors.
There are some interesting interactions that go on during seminars between advisors and professors. I'm going to try and classify them by animal. These may change as I go to more seminars, but this is what I have so far. There are the gurus (okay that's not an animal, so what?), who know pretty much everything (or at least can BS it very well) who don't say much but when they do it's always a good point, and while they sometimes show pity, they are usually more or less indifferent to watching you crash and burn. There are the lions, who spend their time chomping away at the faults of the paper. While their intentions are good for the most part, deep down they love to find whatever is wrong and solve it. I have a theory that they make good advisors so long as you constantly go to them for help, and not wait until your defense (where they will eat you alive, while smiling). There are the badgers, who nitpick, and whine incessantly and really just like to hear themselves speak. Very little is accomplished from their criticisms, and after they're (finally) done speaking the most common though is, "Well there's ten minutes of my life I'll never get back." Don't piss them off, and don't try to get too involved in proving them wrong. Remember that a badger's bite doesn't let go even when it's dead. Lastly there are the birdies, who never make any real criticisms at all, they just sing whenever they get the chance. Their comments are usually very flowery, and involve situations which might or might not ever happen in real life, and/or have no bearing whatsoever to your topic. Feel free to kill time by calling on them if they have a question.

So I'm pondering my future defense, and trying to learn as much as I can about what went wrong with those that came before me so that I don't have to waste my time (and theirs) listening to corrections of semantics, math, and spelling.

Wonder if my brother is dealing with similar things in Psychology... hm...