In the previous section I described the joy of working with a student similar to parenting. One key difference of research projects and parenting is that students and professors can choose each other based on observable characteristics, while biological parents are at the mercy of genetics. For students they need a professor who is a good mentor and teacher, knows the field of the topic and is an active scholar. For faculty members the goal is to find a productive student. For students it is really important to read what the professor is looking for in this section, since often it is students that have to convince professors to work with them. For faculty members though to get the best students, we may have to recruit and I have suggestions for this.
Students What to look for in a research mentor?
Asking a professor whose class you have taken is a good idea. Seeing a professor in the class room you can get a general sense if you think you would get along with them. If you have had the professor, hopefully you will have also taken a specialized class related to your topic (e.g. Development Economics, Environmental Economics, Labor Economics). If you have not taken a specialized class related to your project you should do that first if possible (see section 1). You may also ask your fellow economics majors about their own opinion of professors. Talk to other professors typically we all know each other in a department and if there is a macroeconomics professor you like they can probably tell you about which microeconomics professors would be good to work with (or vice versa).
You want to find a research mentor who has some related experience in the subfield you are studying. There are many different subfields in economics, which typically are taught in specialized classes either after a student takes the introductory classes. Another place to get an idea of the subfields of economics is to look at the Journal of Economics Literature (JEL) codes, try to figure out where your research topic would fit.
It helps when choosing a faculty mentor that you understand the different types of professors at your university. You want to find a professor who is tenured or close to it. To do this go to the economics department web page and look at the list of the professors you will likely see titles or as we call them ranks such as professor, associate professor, assistant professor, visiting assistant professor, or lecturer. Those who are listed as professor or associate professor most likely have tenure. That means essentially unless they do something monumentally terrible they cannot get fired. Tenure is typically awarded (or not) in the faculty members 7th year. Assistant professors are generally faculty members with fewer than seven years’ experience and will apply for tenure in their seventh year. Getting tenure is a great benefit, supervising student research may impede the faculty member’s ability to get tenure, since it is often based on their research even in more teaching focused schools. So in short professors and associate professor are in a good position career wise to help you, assistants are a maybe depending on the status of their research production (see my advice to professor on the benefits of supervising research).
The last two visiting assistant professors and lectures are not tenure track, which means they will never have tenure unless they apply for an assistant professor job. This means they are typically paid substantially less than and receive fewer benefits than tenured track faculty. They also generally teach more courses and are often less research oriented because of the demand on their time from teaching. I would not entirely rule lectures out, but in most cases lectures have too many demands on their time and are not compensated well enough to do independent studies.
Finally, you want to choose a good researcher and someone who is doing work related to what your interest. Ask your other professors what they think of the research of any professors you might want to work with. Though realize, as a professor we might not say anything terrible about our colleagues since they are often our friends or at minimum we work with them. Try go to google scholar and look for the professor’s page doing an author search (link) Are there papers listed in the last few years for the professor and are they in subjects you would be interested in?
Questions
- Is there a professor whose class you have greatly enjoyed who you might want to work more with?
- Is their work in a field related to your research topic? Have you taken the relevant field class first?
- What is the professor’s rank?
- Is the professor an active researcher?