Another student of mine wrote to me a while ago, asking for tips along the lines that the title of this blog post suggests. Said person hopes to build a career in the finance industry, so my recommendations are fashioned accordingly, but it still might be of interest to some/all of you.

So here goes (The student’s requests in bold italic, my responses are as per usual)

1. Books
   1. Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, by Charles Kindleberger
   2. Can “It” Happen Again?: Essays on Instability and Finance, by Hyman Minsky
   3. End this depression now!, by Paul Krugman
   4. This time is different, by Reinhart and Rogoff
   5. Keynes: The Return of the Master, by Robert Skidelsky None of these books have been written with the kind of crisis that we are bout to face in mind. Macroeconomics, and public policy are going to be tested like never before, but still, reading (or re-reading) these books is likely to be a useful exercise for the days to come.
2. Movies
   1. Trading Places, starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd
   2. Groundhog Day, starring the inimitable Bill Murray
   3. The Exterminating Angel, a Bunuel movie
   4. Arbitrage, starring Richard Gere
   5. Wild Tales, a movie from Argentina
3. Online Courses
   1. It’s not cheap, it’s not free, but that may be an argument in its favor. Consider Akimbo.
   2. Flip it! Why learn? Teach! Create YouTube videos, blogs, podcasts. If your argument is going to be “but I don’t know anything well enough to teach it”, well, that’s a reason for you to teach, not the other way around.
   3. The other sources are so well known that I won’t bother repeating them here. But I strongly recommend 2. above
4. Other Miscellaneous Reading
   1. Twitter! It remains gloriously underrated, but think of Twitter as a very delicate plant that needs daily nurturing. Be ruthless about culling people from your feed, and if you are looking for a good place to suggest, try #econtwitter
   2. Blogs.
   3. Prospect Magazine is not behind a paywall right now.
   4. The Browser (I think they give one free read a day)
   5. Longform.org
5. Things I should be doing/learning as a masters graduate
   1. Build a project tracker using Microsoft Excel across multiple sheets
   2. Learn some basic, fun coding. Here is a fun example.
   3. Put your work out there. Your CV is work that is publicly available to see; it is not a printed piece of paper.
   4. Build a network of people you have learnt from, get mentors in your field.
   5. Pay it forward: build a network of people you have taught, get mentees in your field.