Hello Again

Well, it is finals period over here on the East Coast and I am feeling it big time. This entire semester is a complete blur, days/weeks/months/hours just melted together and now I am here. The last finals season of my junior year. At Wellesley we get to decide when we want to take our exams (the college trusts us!) but it has to be somewhere between today (the first day) and Monday (our last day). I, being brave, took my first final today- Intermediate Macroeconomics. It really wasn't THAT bad and I am glad to have it DONE. One exam down, one Advanced Microeconomic Theory test, one Advanced Econometrics paper, and one African cinema paper...ahhh the life of an econ major (except for the whole African cinema thing....).

I originally thought that this blog would serve as my forum to discuss current economic issues/happenings around the world- but now I realize that I would like it to be more than that. I have had the opportunity to do some amazing work in the field as an undergraduate student and I thought that I would also share about some of the things I have been doing. So, here it goes!

I think I will start with my first and foremost extracurricular activity- my research. For the past year I have been working as a research assistant at Wellesley's awkward big brother school, MIT. First I worked at MIT's Sloan School of Management (business school) and now at MIT's Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. The Poverty Action Lab is basically Esther Duflo's brain child-have I ever actually seen her? No...but I am a very proud data-cleaning minion. I am currently working on a project with Daniel Keniston (a graduate student at MIT) and Richard Hornbeck (a professor at Harvard). The project investigates the effects of massive urban fires on the future development of major cities in the United States.

See how legitimate I am!

http://www.povertyactionlab.org/onaindia

Basically in the last 19th/early 20th century, there were massive fires in a lot of major U.S. cities that were largely caused by substandard buildings and lacking building codes-basically these types of catastrophes were inevitable with the current urban situations. The theory is that the burning down of all of these buildings was actually a positive thing for these cities and allowed them to rebuild blocks and widen streets out of necessity, which is far cheaper (no demolition costs) and less controversial for city officials (don't have to kick a bunch of people and/or their businesses out of a certain area). The improvements made would positively benefit these cities and allow them to thrive, this is especially compelling since the great fire that occurred in Boston is now the financial district- a MAJOR and modern part of the city.

I feel extremely lucky to be included in the project because there are very few occasions in life where you get to interact with truly brilliant and wonderful people. I also love participating in research because this is what my current education is training me to do, answer the questions that plague the rest of the world.