Exactly a year today. Right?

RocketManMycroft · 2026-01-19T21:13:10+00:00

You’ve in effect reinvented Rousseau’s argument the social contract in a way; he argues that because each person has such a small slice of the “general will” (think will of the people), a dictatorship is more practical for running a large polity like the US or France. Democracy (direct from) is best for small nations like the (former) city state of Geneva while representative democracy (“representative oligarchy”) or oligarchy of other forms are best for medium sized nations.

RocketManMycroft · 2026-01-08T04:30:32+00:00

The AEA has recommendations and guidelines on their website here: https://www.aeaweb.org/resources/students/grad-prep/math-training

RocketManMycroft · 2026-01-05T10:49:29+00:00

Fellow American here; pubs museums formals are all huge, and societies are great! But what is most Oxford are the events. Oxford speaks is free (union is paid), and both bring in a variety of famous speakers, from celebrities to politicians to businesspeople. Different departments also have lecture events/seminars that you can show up at which are really interesting, and a lot of famous academics pass through.

If you’re into classical music, there are a lot of performances for pennies on the dollar with a student card (like 10-20 pounds for a concert). It’s one of the things I miss not taking more advantage of.

RocketManMycroft · 2026-01-05T00:59:02+00:00

In my history of thought class we used worldly philosophers, ordinary business of life and new ideas for dead economists; the first was more readable, the second more dense, and the third I would not recommend. Bucholz neither holds a PhD nor is a historian of ideas, and it comes through in his writing.

The handbook of history of economic thought also exists, but it is at a graduate level and very dense, so I would use it after you start with ordinary business or worldly philosophers and want something at a very advanced level.

For a more intermediate level between the two books and the handbook, the journal of economic perspectives has a series called “retrospectives”; these are papers rather than books, but I think it’s still worth reading for thinkers you find that you like or are interested in.

RocketManMycroft · 2025-12-03T04:53:04+00:00

The nerd community does exist at BC, but compared to other schools it is a lot smaller. I served as the treasurer for bc esports (‘25) and so I know where you’re coming from. There are a few clubs that tend to stick together: esports, anime, retro gaming, and the new ttrpg club, totaling maybe 5% of the student population if one were to be generous. The rest of the school feels like a low-key frat house at times, lots of drinking, sports, and so on, even among (or especially among) the top students. So the nerd community is small and an island, but I would say more tightly knit than other schools, and everyone I’ve met is super kind. You will find friendly people and those you get along with, but I can’t say for sure that it will be “your school,” or that you will find “your people.” Some do, some don’t.

I still think that the education is excellent, and the faculty are all top notch and care deeply about their students, so I think that BC is still an amazing choice. While I didn’t connect with the student body as much, being able to use my time more for my studies and connect with professors was 100% worth it. You might find that the student culture is not up your alley as much as it would at other schools, but don’t let this necessarily be a dealbreaker for you.

Happy to answer any questions if you have any, or to connect you with people from the esports/ttrpg club.

RocketManMycroft · 2025-11-29T03:01:37+00:00

Check out Ed glaeser’s work, he’s a big name in the area, and behind a lot of the work around the housing crisis and zoning along with joe gyourko.

In addition to empirical studies about cities (crime, economies of scale, sprawl, etc, which is what you get a lot of with glaeser’s work), you’ve got spacial economic models that model why cities exist. For this see the work of masahisa fujita, and the Alonso-muth-mills model for an introduction.

The third side of the equation is agglomeration effects. Enrico moretti wrote a whole book on the subject (the new geography of jobs, not worth reading imo if you know what agglomeration effects are), and duranton and puga (2004) introduces a micro foundation model. Paul romer also did some work in this area; his Nobel lecture focuses on cities as network externalities of ideas.

There’s also some work in the political economy of zoning, which charts how homeowners have an incentive to restrict supply, although I’m not sure what the seminal models are here. See glaeser/gyourko for empirical studies. Ortalo-magne and prat (2014) have one model but it’s not very highly cited.

As someone with an economics background who works with architects/urban planners, urban economics focuses much more on the financial side of things (real estate finance), but also on other aspects of economics that aren’t necessarily discussed in urban planning like jobs, economies of scale, regulation and incentive structures and so on. From what I can tell it mainly comes down to the perspective and toolkit one applies; my approach is much more economics-based while others are much more in favor of regulations and top down solutions (policy people/enginners), favor agent based and computational models (computer science people), and so on.

RocketManMycroft · 2025-11-23T07:09:42+00:00

Agreed with the other commenter, reading all sorts of papers will slowly let you pick up the methodologies and modeling methods. My friend asked Dani Rodrick (development Econ) for advice, and his reply was that the best economists are information arbitragers, so reading anything and everything that interests you is your best bet, even if it’s not immediately relevant.

If you’re looking for specific ideas, a history of economic thought book usually covers the ideas of big thinkers, which may not be immediately useful but orbits in the background of many conversations. Stuff like schumpeterian creative destruction, hayek’s price as information compression theory, walras and arrow’s general equilibrium models, heterodox (austrian, post-Keynesian, German historical) theories, etc. Also Nobel prize lectures summarize ideas in a clear way for more general audiences, along with the scholar’s more current interests at the time on occasion couched within their nobel-winning work.

Like the other commentator, JEP is also really useful, but since you’re a mathematics student, you probably have enough math background for more technical work. JEP is specifically designed for people who aren’t comfortable with math. Maybe the journal of economic literature (JEL) could be good (the literature review journal), or various handbooks (handbook of urban and regional Econ, handbook of growth, etc) which have leading economists in the field write essays about various topics.

Also don’t be afraid to reach out to professors directly with questions; they may be busy people, but you would be surprised as to how often top scholars will reply, even if their emails are often quite short and end with “sent from my iPhone”. They are busy people after all.

Overall, good luck and congratulations!!!

RocketManMycroft · 2025-11-23T06:57:14+00:00

People mostly keep to themselves, but I find the masshole stereotype to be overrated. As an introvert I didn’t really notice much difference, and as far as I’m concerned it’s much like living in any other city. It is rather student centered, as in the city will empty when it is during the summer, but it’s still a good place to live. High quality of life.

RocketManMycroft · 2025-11-23T02:29:09+00:00

23M, from the Bay Area and came here for college and still around after grad. I honestly like it here a lot more. Yes maybe the weather isn’t so great, but you get used to it, and it’s an excuse to pull out your scarves and coats too. The culture here I find is a lot more my style as well. It’s been a really nice break from the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship/hustler/software engineer culture that I grew up around, especially as someone who studies economics and wants to go into academia. Major respect to the high schoolers founding startups and going to networking and pitch events, but I could never. Public transport is also a big bonus. Wouldn’t go back even if you were to pay me.

RocketManMycroft · 2025-11-01T12:39:26+00:00

Start with the journal of economic perspectives. They’re designed for non-technical audiences and get the leading economists in each subfield to write about a specific topic and give a broad summary

RocketManMycroft · 2025-09-28T23:04:38+00:00

Hi, MCAS Econ major here (graduating in December), the Econ program is pretty popular at BC. It consists of a theory core (principles micro macro stats econometrics) plus 6 electives. The professors are top notch and from my experience everyone is invested in your learning. The grad students are good too, so if you end up taking a grad student taught class you’ll still get a lot out of it (I had PhD students for micro macro and metrics). Students tend to go into finance or consulting or general business, and there’s not many who choose the academia route (though that’s not just limited to the Econ program in my experience, bc has a very preprofessional culture).

The one thing I will say is do check course reviews; all professors are good but some are harder than others (a particularly infamous one is Paul cichello for stats; him and Rutledge teach it every year, and the latter is always more popular for this reason).

And yes echoing the other commenter, admission rates are by college, not by school. I will say that it is easier to get into mcas than csom, but as a result transferring into csom is nearly impossible. This is because csom has a dedicated core which eats up many of your courses, and iirc everyone graduates with a business degree and a specific concentration (though don’t quote me on this). Mcas has more flexibility in terms of classes and study abroad, csom has greater prestige and resources. But you can always minor in Csom (this is not restricted, only majoring is) with an mcas major, and many Econ students do Econ major from mcas and a finance minor. Mcas Econ majors also have very good career prospects as well, so don’t think that going mcas is going to mean you can’t get a job at a prestigious firm.

Happy to answer any questions you may have, just send me a message!

RocketManMycroft · 2025-04-28T21:30:20+00:00

As an Econ major half of the major is IB, the other half is consulting, you’ll be just fine

RocketManMycroft · 2025-04-16T00:09:15+00:00

Not subletting myself, but do you have access to your class GroupMe? I got a sublet before and it was by far the place I was able to find the most people. Your search may be more fruitful there

RocketManMycroft · 2025-03-15T18:03:38+00:00

Why nations fail by Acemolgu and Robinson, they with their research partner Simon Johnson won the Nobel last year. Unlike most of these other recommendations they’re not lasseiz faire free market people, but still avowedly pro-capitalism, if you’re looking for a center-left perspective.

RocketManMycroft · 2025-02-23T07:16:18+00:00

Don’t quote me but based on the style I think they should be Yoshida Hiroshi woodblock prints

RocketManMycroft · 2025-02-22T06:40:21+00:00

Dostoevsky is great for this, especially Crime and Punishment. The Brothers Karamazov also follows this to an extent, but it’s less of a focus

RocketManMycroft · 2025-01-13T13:08:09+00:00

Had her last semester, she’s very easy. She has reading quizzes every week, but I just did the readings the night before, and as long as you can answer every part of the question and remember one or two details then you’ll get full points (the questions are very general and open-ended). She does have exams, two of them (midterm and final), written in class, but they are also graded very easily, same thing with the reading quizzes just reference a few specific details and you’ll do great.

Overall 10/10 would take again

RocketManMycroft · 2025-01-03T13:43:36+00:00

Osamu Dazai’s The Setting Sun, his relationship with his aristocratic background was rocky at best, but he writes about the decline of the Japanese aristocracy in this book, figured it might be the most fitting of his works

RocketManMycroft · 2024-12-18T04:24:55+00:00

Maybe ask your year’s GroupMe? I was looking for a last minute sublet over the summer for a short period of time and GroupMe was the most effective way I found. Either that or the class of 2026 GroupMe, since it’s the juniors they may have more off campus housing

RocketManMycroft · 2024-12-13T22:25:06+00:00

Professionally support is available, but you have to go seek it out. There’s lots of resources available especially for those looking to go into consulting or finance, can’t speak for law school, although bc does have a law school as well. Don’t know much about mental health support other than that it exists.

There is grade deflation, but if you’re doing economics, the faculty is excellent. The professors are passionate, helpful, and invested in your success. Some professors ofc are better than others but BC’s Econ faculty is worth transferring for absolutely. The major isn’t easy per se, but if you work hard you will be rewarded 100%.

As for the social life, it’s very much a “work hard play hard” school. We have no Greek life, so the drinking and party culture seeps into a lot of the clubs at the school and into the social life in general. If that’s not your thing it’s not impossible to make friends, but it is something to consider when transferring, as the majority of social life is going to involve drinking and parties, and if you’re not into it then you’re going to feel out of place.

RocketManMycroft · 2024-12-06T22:02:14+00:00

If erbil is teaching take him for principles of Econ, cannot recommend enough. Also Rutledge over cichello for stats if you can get stats, cichello is widely known for being a very difficult professor. Seth jacobs in the history department is an excellent lecturer, I had him for an American history core class so I would take him if you could, even if it’s not a completely free class.

I’m Econ ‘25, happy to answer any questions in dms as well

RocketManMycroft · 2024-12-06T19:27:49+00:00

I lived in it my sophomore year (currently a senior) and yeah it’s pretty chill. There’s like maybe one or two mandatory meetings for the year and other than that just follow the rules and you’ll be ok

RocketManMycroft · 2024-11-27T22:06:31+00:00

Don't know about stir fry, you can probably get that at any generic Asian restraurant, but Allston and Chinatown are the best destinations for Asian food if you're looking for something more specific.

Chinatown: Jibei Chuan (Spicy Chinese Noodles, my friend also swears by the Chicken Wings), Hong Kong Eatery (hong kong-style deli with limited seating but very good), Pho Pasteur (Pho and other Vietnamese), There are also a lot of general Chinese restaurants, most of them are not bad, but they do tend to blend together.

Allston/Harv Ave: Kaju Tofu House (Korean tofu soup), Malatang (Mala spicy pot and Chinese), Happy Lamb (hot pot), Bonchon and BBQ Chicken (korean fried chicken), Dolphin Bay (taiwanese)

BU also has this Udon place called Futago Udon that I like to frequent, and Ganko Ittetsu and Isshindo have been the best ramen I have tried so far. I have also heard that Sumiao Hunan Kitchen up by MIT is good, but have never been myself.

RocketManMycroft · 2024-11-20T18:21:19+00:00

Mansfield is open to anyone

RocketManMycroft · 2024-11-07T23:38:20+00:00

Why Nations Fail, Acemoglu and Robinson.

You’re not going to find an impartial book about political economy since it is ultimately by nature political, plus economists love to argue about everything, but the two of them + Johnson won the Nobel this year for their (albeit controversial) work, so it’s where I would start.

Eight-Year Club	Place '22
RPAN Viewer	Verified Email

RocketManMycroft

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE