Doing Economics

Advising Undergraduate Students
At most institutions, faculty are called upon to advise undergraduate
students. As discussed in the previous section, however, what this means
will differ depending on the type of institution. For example, having just
concluded my fifteenth year as a tenure-track academic, I have literally had
scores of undergraduate major advisees (i.e., advisees assigned to me by
virtue of having chosen one of the majors offered by my department), but I
have had meetings with at most a quarter of those advisees. In part, this is
because I have only worked at R1 universities, where the undergraduate
advising expectation was minimal for tenure-track faculty, and where a lot
of the advising undergraduate students seek tends to be specific to the
institution (e.g., “Should I take HIST1471 or HIST1312 next fall for my
humanities elective?”) rather than general advising (e.g., “Should I major in
economics or political science?,” “Should I take a gap year before applying
to grad school?,” and so on).
At R1, R2, and D/PU universities, undergraduate advising will generally
follow the pattern just described. In non-doctoral schools, however, and
especially at institutions that focus primarily on undergraduate teaching
(i.e., master’s colleges and universities, baccalaureate colleges, and so on),
undergraduate advising is a crucial aspect of the job. So while someone at a
doctoral institution can get by with encouraging students to talk to their
peers, to talk to college- or university-level professional advisors, to consult
available reviews of the classes they are considering, and to go with what
interests them, faculty at institutions that focus on undergraduate teaching
will need to be intimately familiar with the requirements of the major or
majors in which they teach, with the contents of the courses offered by their
department, and so on.
One task that is likely common to all undergraduate advisors is helping
students figure out answers to questions that go beyond the time they will
be spending at your institution. Once again, the worst you can do is to try to
force your own preferences on your students. Rather, it is your job to help
students see the myriad of paths that are available to them. Even if you have
not spent any time working between your undergraduate and graduate
degrees or taken a gap year, you can draw from the experiences of your
friends, family members, and acquaintances to help your undergraduates
decide for themselves what they would like to do with their lives. Because a

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lot of students are undecided about what they want to spend the rest of their
life doing, one of my go-to pieces of advice is for students to take a year off
to travel or to work abroad (even if it means just tending bar somewhere)
before committing to a career path, as my own experience working abroad
after finishing my master’s helped solidify my desire to do a PhD and
become a researcher.
2
A colleague who teaches at a liberal arts college further advises the
following.
1. It helps to learn a few of your department’s rules of thumb that
consist of good advice about classes or the order in which classes
should be taken—think of things that do not usually show up on
the registrar’s page. For example, that it may be better to take
intermediate micro before taking intermediate macro, even
though the former is not a prerequisite for the latter. Or that if you
are interested in applied econometrics, it might be wise to take a
labor economics class. As an advisor, you can usually learn these
rules of thumb from your more senior colleagues.
2. You should know what things the professional advisors or the
advising center (if your institution has either or both) can handle
for you, and be sure to forward advising issues to them.
3
 At some
institutions, students have both a faculty advisor and a college-
level advisor.
3. The benefit you can provide from simple check-ins can mean a lot
to a student, making them feel like someone knows that they are
actually a student and cares about their well-being. Even if you do
not give any useful advice, a simple “How are your classes
going?” in the hallway can go a long way toward making a
student feel like they belong.
Another colleague at a SLAC notes that an important part of an advisor’s
job is to help facilitate student contact with the alumni network. To that
effect, advisors generally have to know where their former students work,
and they often connect current and former students. That colleague also
notes that advising and mentoring at a SLAC can be an intensive task, as
advisors are often expected to have students over for dinner at their house,

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or to attend their students’ extracurricular events. In such cases, it is
important to define and enforce healthy boundaries while still having a
close mentoring and advising relationship with students.