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Boettke's Career Advice

Jonathan B. Wight

Peter Boettke offers sage “Advice to Undergraduates”  who are thinking of graduate school.  

To succeed in economics, Peter says to follow four rules:

1.      Learn how to say, “I do not know.”

2.      Follow your comparative advantage.

3.      Embrace Mises [okay, if you’re not Austrian you can substitute read Mises].

4.      Continuously fall in love with the discipline of economics.

People get into trouble trying to be who they’re not, by gravitating toward what one thinks others want to hear.  Peter notes that, “the stealth strategy talk is the most destructive idea I have seen for promising academic careers in my 25 years of teaching.” 

A key point in this essay is to be honest with yourself and others: in other words, strive to know yourself and be true to yourself – not a bad way to close any virtue ethics blog. 

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