So I went to my first job market seminar. There have been 3 so far this year, and a healthy rumbling amongst the students and faculty that those who are presenting are better than those last year (see the post with the picture of "Saturn Devouring His Children").
A lot of the departmental students were excited to see an Ivy League(ish) graduate defend a well written paper, and I was excited to ask a few questions about the paper myself (questions that I thought were not very good at first).
Well we were all disappointed. Or maybe just... underwhelmed.
My questions were asked, but the professors got there first. Now, there's supposed to be a time when the students can meet and greet with the candidate, and shoot the breeze, and ask questions. She gave no solid response to any of the questions I had in my margins. In fact she ducked them. Each and every one. That was dis-heartening in that it showed some of the lack of preparation in her paper, the hidden (but now glaring) problems in her paper's assumptions, and the lack on her part to give a straight answer. M didn't like the way she ducked the questions either. K just didn't like her sample size and how she managed to cut a nation-wide survey down to only 3000 observations, and did not seem to know WHICH REGION those observations fell into (migration in Mexico after all is heavily correlated to region. For example, residents of Chihuahua do not tend to migrate as heavly as residents of Oaxaca). This... is... vexing. It's a survey. Odds are, they have some kind of data or question that tells you at least WHERE the person is. But this was just one of the assumptions and econometric blurbs that sat like an Arby's roast sandwhich in the stomachs of the audience (... not well for those of you unfamiliar with Arby's).
My excitement over the fact that she reached an interesting conclusion that went against the literature I'd researched the semester before, evaporated in a few minutes. I could not, despite how nice the paper looked, and how... acceptable (in some regards) the presentation was credibly look at the paper anymore.
I was disappointed. More should have been done, or at least explained. So I'll stick by my first MA paper. All in all, she might get the job. But apparently the three before her were rather good. But most of the students, and I believe some of the faculty were not convinced. This is not to say she was not a well spoken presenter (despite saying "uh" every sixth word, and the dodging of questions as if she was that kid from Ed, in Dodgeball), but she just was not convincing.
Went to the doctor for my back problems and got some iso-metric exercises to do. He said the running probably wasn't a problem since I didn't do it very heavily before the pain started, and that I could start again on a "listen to the pain" basis. In other words, if I hurt: stop. Got some medicine which I took last night, and for the first thirty minutes though "dang this isn't doing jack squat." Thirty minutes later the only thing I could think of was sleep. That was about... 11ish? 12ish? Maybe earlier... I don't remember. I just woke up 30 minutes ago (10 AM). Goooooood sleep.
Congrats to Raoul on his MA defense! Way to go!
La Ardilla will be here soon! Yay! ... I suppose I should get some work done now.
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