I'm an english teacher in Greece at the moment, and over the last two years have been formulating my conception of my dream job: teaching economics. At whatever level. I love the subject and have done for a long time, but didn't know in time to apply for university after i left college (ie, high school in england).
I am planning to go to university, and originally wanted to go to Madrid to learn with Jesus De Soto, whilst considering other options. I want to get in a position where i can teach economics (and have read about these community colleges in America), and i don't mind if that's at the undergraduate level or not. I am not expecting to try and get in a position to be influencing academia, i just want to teach. If i can do this at an undergraduate level, that would be incredible, if not, I don't mind. For this I will need a phd. This does not faze me, but of course i want to maximise my chances by picking the right schools. Would my chances be hurt by staying at one university for the entirety of the process of getting degree-masters-phd? would that help me teach at that university? would i be able to become an assistant professor at another university? A lot of the advice for grad students is about becoming super-research guys, as far as i can tell. I am more interested in teaching (as i doubt i will have any particularly novel ideas, but who knows).
So i was also thinking of the Athens university of Economics and Business, which is very highly regarded but very hard to get into. Or perhaps another greek university. All of these are very difficult questions.
If anyone can give me advice on getting into the field, it would be greatly appreciated.
There's a very informative debate on the matter between Walter Block (pro getting a PhD and teaching) and Gary North (contra getting a PhD and teaching). It should mandatory viewing for anyone faced with this decision.
The gist of the matter is that in the quite unlikely event that you manage to attain a professorship at a university friendly to Austrian economics (which I assume is what you want to teach), it can be a good experience, but the more likely scenario is that you will end up an underpaid assistant in a climate very hostile to your ideas.
Well one question I sort of wanted answered is the extent to which the choice of undergraduate school has an affect... what's the effect on Postgrad prospects of the choice of undergraduate school? or is it rather based on your performance wherever you came from?
Think of it as a quota system. Certain percent reserved for prestigious schools, lesser percent for good students from inferior schools.
My humble blog
It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
See
Austrian economics and university
from The Ultimate Beginner meta-thread
And Where to study Austrian Economics
wegreenall:Well one question I sort of wanted answered is the extent to which the choice of undergraduate school has an affect... what's the effect on Postgrad prospects of the choice of undergraduate school? or is it rather based on your performance wherever you came from?
Obviously having a name like "Harvard" on your grad school app looks good and helps, but of course not every application, or even most of the applications are going to be from top tier schools like that. So obviously they're going to pick students from elsewhere as well. (Diversity is a big thing these days.) Your academic record is more important, because a simply fancy name is not going to trump a poor record.
Be sure to check out Advice to Undergraduates by Peter Boettke, April 2011
It's really hard to find an academic job in economics let alone Austrian economics. In all likelihood, the best you can do is a find a shitty job (after a couple of post-docs) at Southwest Missouri Bible College, where you will teach mentally retarded hicks whose ability to survive to reproductive age gives their church leaders the evidence they need that evolution is false.
I'd stick with teaching English.
I am sure an economist with a PhD can get a job in data/quantitative analysis.