Cortney Rodet

California Institute of Technology (Post-Doc)

I entered the PhD program at FSU in 2006 and graduated in the spring of 2011. In August of the same year I began a two-year post doctoral position at the California Institute of Technology. I could not imagine my graduate school experience going any better than it has in terms of finding my research niche, building valuable relationships and learning critical skills needed to enter academia.

If I could offer any valuable input for those considering graduate school, and Florida State in particular, I would say that anyone who is motivated to be successful will thrive whether or not they currently know the fields that interest them or who they would like to work with. You will have many experiences that will shape your ‘research identity.’ The course work gives ample opportunity to discover what interests you, and it may change your preconceived ideas of what fields you would like to explore. For example, my entire dissertation was the product of papers I wrote in my courses. The professors encourage you to look at the big picture when choosing projects and give critical feedback that will help shape your identity. Moreover, you will tend to gravitate towards those professors with whom you have similar interests, whether it is research methods or topics. In my experience, professors value their role as mentors just as much as their role as researchers. This was enormously important to my experience. New ideas excite them, and academia is all about new ideas. Thus, they will want to see your work and give their input. Not only that, you will have a chance to work on projects where you will pick up important skills and see the full fledged process of an idea becoming a published article. There are also various venues for presenting your research. Take advantage of these opportunities because you will receive feedback and be forced to think about and defend what you did.

After my first year, I was fortunate to work for David Cooper, Tim Salmon and Mark Isaac, as well as the rest of the Experimental Social Science Group at Florida State (XSFS), as a research assistant. Opportunities like these provide a chance to showcase your drive and your skills, and they will open up doors in the future. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to make yourself stand out (in a good way) among your fellow graduate students. Not in a pretentious or arrogant manner either, because this will be counterproductive. If you do good work, opportunities will come your way. There are various research groups to work with at FSU, and you will find that choosing from these is a nice problem to have.

There are plenty of chances to hone your teaching skills as well, and do not feel as though you have teach what is already part of the curriculum. If you have an idea for a class, there is a good chance you can design your own course. I was able to teach a course in political economy that complemented what was currently offered quite well. It seemed to be a success for those students in economics that had an interest in politics as well as students in political science who had not yet had a course focused on the rational choice paradigm.

I owe a lot to my professors and everyone at FSU, and I feel well prepared to phase into my academic career. I think I speak for all the alumni from the department of economics by saying that graduate school will be what you make of it, but FSU provides an environment conducive to finding success.