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BPP Student Institutions (view source)
Revision as of 18:37, 30 January 2011
, 18:37, 30 January 2011no edit summary
*'''Post-OEW beer and pretzels (September-May)''': Every week after OEW we have beer and pretzels (or in more recent semesters, fancy cheese and high grade wine). It has become the norm that '''second years are in charge''' of procuring and bringing the amenities. The beer should be cold. You must bring pretzels although no one eats them. You must not bring fat-free chips.
*'''Welcome dinner (September)''': After some OEW at the start of the semester we all go to a local restaurant and have a big dinner. It is a good time to catch up about the summer, and generally stuff our faces.
*'''Williamson Society ''' (has varied, but tends to be in the '''Spring'''): Once a year, students who have '''passed their orals ''' since the last Society meeting are '''inducted into the Williamson Society''', where they take the formal secret pledge and are awarded with a wooden [[Williamson (1999) - Public And Private Bureaucracies#The Schema |TCE schema]]. The Society meeting is often led by an alumnus of the program, who speaks of the importance of BPP in his/her career. Each cohort of students then '''prepares a skit, game or song where they “roast” the new inductees'''. In the past, a cohort may also '''roast BPP professors'''. We then have a big party. '''The third years''' (who will take their orals at the end of the year) are '''in charge''' of the administration of the Society meeting, but again, each individual class is in charge of its own skit.
*'''BPP Holiday Party (December)''': BPP traditionally has a holiday party at a faculty member’s house, oftentimes after the last OEW. Sometimes faculty shirk on this responsibility'''. It’s our job to remind them.
*'''Post second-year exam bowling (Mid summer)''': Soon after 2nd year exams, '''the first years typically organize''' a pizza and bowling night to congratulate second years. We reserve a couple of lanes at Albany Bowl and drink lots of Bud Light.
Also, one of the most important informal institutions is simply hanging around the office and talking about research with colleagues. Alums have identified this as the biggest part of their BPP experience.
==Formal institutions==
===Student seminar===
2nd years and above attend 279s[[PHDBA279S (Fall 2010)| 279S]], the “student seminar,” on a weekly basis. This seminar is usually held early Thursday afternoons. The seminar consists of a weekly presentation by a BPP Ph.D. student (or sometimes by a student from another department or a visiting scholar). The schedule for presentations is decided at the first meeting of the semester. Both the presenter and the audience have obligations:
====Presenter Obligations====
#Participate
Both norms have become increasingly ignored in the last few years. Every BPP student should '''allocate at least an hour a week''' to prepare for 279S, and should '''actively help''' and challenge the presenter during the seminar. In previous years many students have provided '''written feedback''' in advance of the presentation; this is not required but is certainly welcome, and the demise of this informal norm is further evidence that too many of us are ignoring our 279s 279S responsibilities.
===OEW===
It should be noted that some students say that the topics chosen by invited speakers are becoming increasingly distant from our research interests; there are a few answers to this criticism. First, faculty convening the seminar are usually very open to suggestions from us about who to invite. In recent years we have instituted a very successful formal speaker nomination process by Ph.D. students which the faculty seem to like a lot. The speaker nomination process is usually performed by the BPP peer advisor. Second, you can still learn a lot by reading and thinking critically about a paper not directly in your research field.
==Agreed Revisions / New Institions==
On Thursday 27th January 2011, the BPP students attended a meeting with Steve Tadelis, where an agreement was reached on a new institution for presenting at the student seminar. Details are here:
*[[PHDBA279S Presentation Institutions]]
