Mitra L. '07 | December 06, 2006
"Be Our Guest"
I have had the good fortune to hear several excellent guest speakers recently.
1. Steven Levitt (author of Freakonomics and MIT PhD) came to campus on Monday and spent two hours at events for undergraduates
2. Iqbal Quadir (head of MIT's Program in Developmental Entrepreneurship and founder of the Grameen Phone program) spoke to our D-Lab class a few weeks ago about his work with the Grameen Foundation
3. Paul Polak (President of IDE: International Development Enterprises) spoke to my D-Lab class on Monday about the importance of small farms
4. Brigitte Madrian (Aetna Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard) educated my freshman advising seminar a few weeks ago on the ways form logistics affect retirement savings
Read on for more!
1. Professor James Poterba, the head of the Department of Economics, very awesomely emailed the Undergraduate Economics Association (UEA) and told us we would get 12:00 - 2:00 with Steven Levitt in early December. Naturally, we ran with it.
Before Levitt co-authored the book Freakonomics (which my boyfriend adorably writes as "Freakeconomics") with Stephen Dubner, he received his PhD in economics from MIT in 1994. His thesis advisor? Professor James Poterba. Now that he's a best-selling author, though, he's a pretty busy guy. We were pretty lucky to get him for a whole day until he flew down to New York City to appear on The Colbert Report. *Double swoon*
We decided to host a large talk with Levitt from 12-1 in one of the large Tang classrooms, and it ended up being Standing Room Only, so yay. From 1-2, we hosted a round-table discussion for Levitt and a small group of undergrads.
AHHHH as I am writing this I just noticed I am late for class, and have to finish it this afternoon! Sorrrrrry
Levitt stories to add: Dictator game, prostitute, bladder control and m&ms
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Responses To This Entry:
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When I tried to comment on your original Steven Levitt post it said that the entry didn't exist. Weird.
That is a lot of guest speakers!
I loved Freakonomics. I had no idea that Levitt studied at MIT; that's interesting.
Did Steven Levitt talk about conventional economics or the "rogue" economics that he writes about in Freakonomics?
Posted by: Daniel on December 6, 2006 02:55 PM
jonny435
Posted by: jonny152 on December 6, 2006 05:30 PM
So Mitra, are you finally confirming that Sam's your boyfriend? Come on, it's soooo obvious... LOL...
Posted by: Touche on December 9, 2006 08:49 AM
hi mitra,
i want to make you my girlfriend . would u like to be my girl friend?
abhinav kumar,
india.
e-mail: abhinav_mitral@yahoo.com
Posted by: Abhinav Kumar on December 10, 2006 03:33 AM
Hi!
Nice info, big thx.
Posted by: NickySS on December 24, 2006 04:42 PM
Sam's sleeping-on-the-bus face is absolutely the best.
Posted by: nghi on December 26, 2006 05:13 AM
what happened to your post about women in science?
Posted by: Anonymous on December 27, 2006 08:38 PM
You are a shame to us indians.
Posted by: Anonymous from India'10 on January 3, 2007 08:56 PM
