When I was a senior in college, I was interested in law, business, and economics. I decided to join Bates White because I thought its impressive array of economists and litigation-oriented projects would help me choose a career.

My three years at Bates White exposed me to corporate law, a professional results-oriented business environment, and a network of professionals eager to give me career advice. After I decided to apply to Ph.D. programs in economics, partners who are current or former professors at top universities helped me select the most appropriate programs to which to apply. During my decision process, I had the luxury of talking to coworkers who were recent graduates of every Ph.D. program to which I was accepted.

Currently in my first year of graduate school, I frequently use the statistical and computer programming knowledge I gained at Bates White to solve my homework problems. Additionally, this knowledge will help me to immediately dive into complex analyses next year when I begin to RA for professors. Overall, working at Bates White was terrific preparation for learning how to think about complicated problems and prepared me well for the rigor of an academic environment.

B.A., Economics, Vanderbilt University, 2004; First-year Ph.D. student, Economics department, University of Chicago.