Doing Economics

7.1 General Principles
Before launching into general principles of advising and mentoring, I
should note that the type of institution where you work matters. What you
will need to do as an advisor to a student in a given category will vary
dramatically depending on the type of institution you work for according to
the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education discussed in
chapter 5.
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For instance, undergraduate advising at a small liberal arts
college (SLAC) tends to be considerably more hands-on than at a state
flagship R1 university.
The first principle of advising and mentoring is that you should respect
your advisees and mentees’ life choices. Although it often seems as though
the goal of professors is to reproduce (not that way, but by training the next
generation of professors), not every undergraduate student wants to go to
graduate school (some of them are more interested in making money than in
doing research), not every graduate student wants an academic job (some of
them have lexicographic preferences when it comes to the city or country
they live and work in), and not every junior colleague wants to have a
career that is identical to yours. In The Making of an Economist, Redux,
Colander (2008) tells the discouraging story of a young woman at a top
PhD program who had to lie to her advisors about the kind of job she
wanted (assistant professor at a policy school) in order not to be neglected
by her advisors (they wanted her to go for an assistant professor position in
an economics department). So if you somehow intend to give any less than
your best to students and mentees who do not share your vision of what is
best for themselves, your time is probably better spent doing something
other than advising and mentoring.
A close second principle of advising and mentoring is that honesty is the
best policy. Although it may be tempting to hem and haw when, say, a
middling student asks for a letter of recommendation for a top program you
know they would never get into, the buck has to stop somewhere, and it
may as well be with you. It is tempting to avoid being the bearer of bad
news, but much like the interest on some financial products, unrealistic
student or colleague expectations tend to compound—and thus become
worse problems—over time.

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