CBFE Courses, Seminars, & Workshops

Graduate Workshop

All enrolled CBFE students should register for a 1 credit course in the Fall and Spring terms for the Graduate Student Workshop. This course meets 1 hour weekly (generally Fridays). Topics include:

• Professional development
• Student-led research presentations of work on progress
• Practice conference talks
• Practice job talks
• Guest lecturers and featured faculty

First-year Students

Math Camp: The Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AAE) offers a “math camp” the week before classes begin. When offered, incoming CBFE students are required to attend. Contact the SoHE grad coordinator with questions about enrollment.

Qualifying Exam: Students sitting for the exam (generally late May to early June) should register for a 1 credit summer course CS 999 with the exam chair.

Seminars and Workshops

Courses are only one element of the Ph.D. experience. Seminars and special lectures given by visitors, talks by job candidates, and conferences are equally important. Students are expected to find a seminar series or two in which to participate on a regular basis. Workshops provide an opportunity to become exposed to cutting-edge research and a chance to meet with scholars from other universities. You will be required to report to the Grad committee on which seminars you regularly attend each year.

Examples of Campus Seminars:

• Behavioral Research Insights Through Experiments (BRITE) Seminar
• CDE DemSem
• CFS Household Finance Seminar
• Development Economics Seminar
• IRP Seminar Series
• Marketing Seminar
• Nelson Institute Seminar
• RMI Seminar

There are summer workshops, trainings and other programs offered on Campus or at other universities that can greatly enhance student’s ability to conduct research. Students can often receive support to attend these events. Often these workshops and trainings allow students to learn new research methods and to meet with students from other universities.

Examples of External Technical Workshops:

• ESTIMATE Summer Program at Michigan State University
• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
• Causal Inference Workshop at Northwestern University
• Statistical Horizons Training