Alumna Update Shivangi Bishnoi
Shivangi Bishnoi is a 2019 scholar who pursued an MA in Analysis and Policy in Economics at the Paris School of Economics.
In this week’s post Shivangi shares with us her observations of how people navigated the pandemic and a glimpse of her current research with Toulouse and Lausanne.
In the list of challenges I expected to grapple with in graduate school, the covid-19 pandemic did not feature. It seems even more unfortunate when I think of the fact that I deferred my admission offer by a year. Yet, it has been a humbling experience in the limits of strategizing your life. I began my masters at the Paris School of Economics in the fall of 2019. Six months in, I was still only relearning how to juggle coursework, my thesis and any semblance of a social life when the pandemic hit. France imposed one of the harshest lockdowns in Europe and arguably the world. I had front-loaded most of my coursework to have more time to work on my thesis, which meant that by the time the country went into lockdown, I only had two classes to attend online. What was harder to sustain was the feeling of solidarity with classmates, the stimulating discussions that sparked ideas and solved problems, and the warmth of libraries packed with students hunched over their laptops, sometimes whispering solutions of entire problem sets to each other while presuming they are being quiet.
I considered taking two paths to writing this blog. I could talk about how much I learnt and achieved this year and my current projects. Or I could talk about the struggles and how I overcame them. But I realized I wanted to talk about something different. The pandemic has uprooted the way of life for many of us. I was fortunate enough to have financial support from the Inlaks Foundation and emotional support from family and friends back home. Yet, I like many others crumbled under the weight of the unprecedented upheaval caused by the pandemic. I saw other students go through the same. The mental health struggles that came with the pandemic are well understood, in theory. What is less understood perhaps, is the situation of students and young people who live alone, without their families and who were forced to weather harsh lockdowns, isolated and often in spaces that could very well have served as prisons. Students and young adults are much more likely to rely on social circles, because they often live away from family. They are also less likely to have stable jobs and/or incomes. Many of them are job-seekers or those transitioning (or hoping to transition) between jobs. This is a bad time for all of these things. Much of this is personal anecdote. I saw and heard of peers plunge into depression or embrace the imposter syndrome like an old friend. As an economist, I do not feel comfortable asserting that they have had it worse than working mothers of young children, or isolated elderly since I have no data to back it up. But, I do believe that this is one group which has been relatively neglected in the discussions surrounding covid-19. I hope I will get the chance to study this some day and direct more attention to how the pandemic affected the well-being of young adults. For the moment, I will make do with the current readership sparing a thought for them.
I am tempted not to end on such a grey note, however. So, I would want to share a little bit about the wonderful things that did happen to me this year. I realized my dearly held dream of studying in Paris under professors I had idolized for many years. In addition to becoming a more able researcher, I also became more fluent in French. I got the opportunity to undertake a research project I had been looking into for more than a year as part of my Masters thesis- I studied the impact of marital property regimes on individual wealth distribution in France. I was fortunate to have been in a relatively pandemic-shielded area of work. Academic research, far from being slowed down, has flourished under the pandemic. Covid-19 has provided the kind of external shock that economists dream of encountering once in their lifetime, because it allows us to study people’s behavior without confounding factors contaminating results. Although, I am certain that those dreams are due for a Bayesian updating now. I started working with a team of researchers in Toulouse and Lausanne (remotely of course) on a large-scale experimental study with French students. Along with another colleague at Columbia University, I am analyzing how friendship networks in schools impact behavioral traits and personal preferences (such as risk or patience). This is ongoing work and we only have preliminary results for now. One of the professors I am working with is affiliated with the World Bank and is launching efforts for justice system reform in India. I have been informally engaged on this project for the last month and a half.
In the midst of so much uncertainty, the hardest decisions to make are those concerning your future. At a time when it is hard to see two weeks into the future, having to make a decision on what your life should be for the next year did not come easy. I had to decide between applying for PhD funding opportunities, staying as a research assistant with the Toulouse School of Economics or do something else entirely. Given the circumstances, I decided to choose something that lets me do a little bit of everything while leaving the door to a doctorate ajar for me, should I want to walk through it at a future date. Two months ago, I started at the New York University Abu Dhabi as an Associate Instructor of Social Sciences. I will be teaching Economic Policy in the spring semester. I am looking forward to being on the other side of the classroom, even if it’s behind a screen.
