The Cambridge Chat Thread - it's over 90,000!

My MPhil was epic. It was much better than my undergrad (although I liked undergrad too).
And I certainly didn't enjoy 'college life'. I spent the whole year socialising with other people in the department and barely did anything social in college at all. You can't generalise.

That's simply a case of people not having applied to those degrees because they actually will enjoy the degree content or find the subject interesting, but because they're aim is the job at the end of it (banking, solicitor/barrister, engineer respectively) and the believed lifestyle that goes with it.

If you found the odd person who had applied to do economics because they find economics genuinely inspiring as a subject (they are the few who may actually be considering academia) then they'd say they found it an "intellectual delight" (Or more sensible words)

Well I didn't in fact generalise, I prefaced everything by making it clear that I was referring to people I had personally met.

Also, again in my experience, grads who stay on after an undergrad also at Cambridge are an entirely different subject again.

I have to disagree - I chose Economics due to the subject content and still didn't find the Tripos an "intellectual delight" (or more sensible words). There were elements of it that were enjoyable but overall the lack of applicability and overemphasis on outdated models was rather disappointing.

maybe worth leaving some feedback on that. Though, are more recent models much better? (Both for predictions and as models)
Maybe why they are looking at these old models needs to be given some consideration - does it teach you something about the new ones, or how to go about modelling the economy?

PS (unrelated): Why does no one's post count show any more?

PS (unrelated): Why does no one's post count show any more?

I think the department are aware of the situation, but there are useful skills to be gained from studying these models. The new ones tend to be too mathematical to teach to undergrads, and from my understanding are not hugely better. I guess it is just due to the intrinsic difficulty of predicting the interaction of millions of people, firms, governments, etc. As previously mentioned, the undergrad does give you the skills required to go into postgrad to study on the frontier, but it would be nice if there was some more currently applicable topics.

PS (unrelated): Why does no one's post count show any more?

I'm sure it's partly that they're too mathematical, there's also a reason you don't learn General Relativity as an Undergrad.
.

we (certainly mathmos and physicists) do?

I don't think the Economics Tripos is particularly "pre-professional", in that it doesn't really have much practical use beyond teaching you to question all statistics and models and to be comfortable using them regardless. If anything it is more "pre-postgrad" in that it gives you what you need to do a postgrad in Economics.

I have to disagree - I chose Economics due to the subject content and still didn't find the Tripos an "intellectual delight" (or more sensible words). There were elements of it that were enjoyable but overall the lack of applicability and overemphasis on outdated models was rather disappointing.

maybe worth leaving some feedback on that. Though, are more recent models much better? (Both for predictions and as models)
Maybe why they are looking at these old models needs to be given some consideration - does it teach you something about the new ones, or how to go about modelling the economy?

I think the department are aware of the situation, but there are useful skills to be gained from studying these models. The new ones tend to be too mathematical to teach to undergrads, and from my understanding are not hugely better. I guess it is just due to the intrinsic difficulty of predicting the interaction of millions of people, firms, governments, etc. As previously mentioned, the undergrad does give you the skills required to go into postgrad to study on the frontier, but it would be nice if there was some more currently applicable topics.

PS (unrelated): Why does no one's post count show any more?

I'm sure it's partly that they're too mathematical, there's also a reason you don't learn String Theory as an Undergrad. But it wouldn't hurt to point out the shortcomings of the simpler models and even spend some time analysing where they fail.

I think one of the big reasons economical models are often so wrong is not that modelling the interactions of many people is hard (you can apply statistics, some things tend to average out, which means that it's actually easier than trying to model any individual or small group of people)
I think the problem is that 1. These models are often based on incorrect axioms (As far as I can tell most economists aren't even aware what their inherent assumptions are, let along checking them)
and 2. Economic systems seem inherently unstable, reacting exponentially to disturbances away from equilibrium rather than returning to equilibrium.

It would be good if we analysed how good they are or what the applied use is, but unless they're one of the straw man models put into the course so you can bash them to death, they're essentially treated as gospel. Maybe a quick look at the empirical evidence, none of the foundations of the assumptions that we look at.

It also pulls the economics profession (and the degree) further and further away from the real world - if friends and family ask about what I'm learning or how it's useful, I can't explain it. If friends give me stick about how useless the discipline is or ask me what I think about other forms of government or modern issues, I have to tell them we haven't covered anything that's got anything to do with that ballpark. Even the supposedly "real world" paper in the first year is mostly about pre-1997 history and unions, instead of actually dealing with anything that's actually broadening. It has the hallmark of a contractual obligation so the external examiner can tick the breadth box. Actually, I think I might have to do another post with a set of suggestions for what would make the degree better...

I should have been more clear - I didn't mean that it was directly applied, I meant that it was taken in general by people who are doing it for the career prospects and not for the joy of the subject. As far as I can tell pretty much everyone goes into banking, consulting or grad school. One way or another (whether that's because of students who see it as a means to an end or professors who set the syllabus in looking to create grad students) the course isn't hugely intellectually focused.

That said, I think the problem is quantity - the faculty keeps piling more and more crap onto the syllabus, making the exam questions compulsory rather than optional so you can't specialise and focusing entirely on mathematical models and occasional history lessons rather than assessing whether the models are any good for economics or what we're trying to do. It feels a lot like jumping through hoops, except the faculty keeps adding more of them and occasionally setting the hoops on fire (oh, you were expecting a formula sheet like they've had every year since the Tripos was created? Well suck on this.) It's the academic equivalent of hard labour rather than intellectually engaging imo.



It would be good if we analysed how good they are or what the applied use is, but unless they're one of the straw man models put into the course so you can bash them to death, they're essentially treated as gospel. Maybe a quick look at the empirical evidence, none of the foundations of the assumptions that we look at.



It also pulls the economics profession (and the degree) further and further away from the real world - if friends and family ask about what I'm learning or how it's useful, I can't explain it. If friends give me stick about how useless the discipline is or ask me what I think about other forms of government or modern issues, I have to tell them we haven't covered anything that's got anything to do with that ballpark. Even the supposedly "real world" paper in the first year is mostly about pre-1997 history and unions, instead of actually dealing with anything that's actually broadening. It has the hallmark of a contractual obligation so the external examiner can tick the breadth box. Actually, I think I might have to do another post with a set of suggestions for what would make the degree better...



We do talk a little bit about stability but the assumptions (rationality, prizing "stuff" above all else, markets that clear etc.) don't tend to get questioned that much, certainly not at undergrad.

I was very close to becoming a geographer after first year, actually, though I did also consider PPS briefly. Somehow I managed to convince myself that if I was an economist I'd end up with a job, and if I was anything else, I wouldn't, plus I didn't want to leave a subject I'd done well in in first year for an uncertain possibility (while failing to consider the possibility that second year econ would be a lot harder...)

Sound like accusations I'd level at the entire field of economics, banking and politics. You might have signed up for the wrong thing.