Afterthoughts: Right after we ended our called I realized that while I talked at length about my non-linear career path to Economics, to really answer your question about what does it take to study economics I would’ve and should have also added this - after teaching undergraduate economics here in the U.S. for a few years, I realized that in spite of being a non-major in economics back in India, I had as much a foundation in Economics as any Econ major here. All the content I taught at the undergraduate level here, I had learnt at the undergraduate level to back home in spite of not majoring in economics. And that also included statistics and calculus! So I wasn’t as much a outsider to the field as I thought myself to be :)
I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at the School of Business at Farmingdale State College (SUNY). I received my PhD in Economics from Fordham University. My research interests lie at the intersection of international trade and development and my research agenda is twofold – one, I am interested in looking at the impact of international trade policies on developing and least developed countries. And two, knowing that even the most development friendly trade policies have to be backed by a robust domestic infrastructure, I investigate the impact of various capacity constraints on firms’ performance, again in the context of developing and least developed countries.
I have taught undergraduate economics for several years at Fordham and continue to do so at Farmingdale. Teaching across multiple modalities (in person and online synchronous and asynchronous), encouraging active learning, student engagement and connecting economic theory to its real world applications are the guiding principles of my teaching practice.
I also volunteer as a co-lead organizer of the mentoring program for Trade Experettes called the Mentorettes. The mentoring program is set up with the objective of providing career guidance to women interested in starting a career in international trade or making a pivot within their established careers or just looking for upward or broader growth.
Follow:
Trade Experettes: https://www.tradeexperettes.org/
Mitali on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitali-pradhan-7550138/