I am an Economics master\u2019s student at Hanken, I want\nto pursue PhD after this, and I want to ultimately go into research. In this\npost I am going to walk you through why I chose Hanken over some other great\nUniversities and what Hanken offers me for my future goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I completed my Economics Bachelor\u2019s degree at Lady\nShri Ram College, Delhi University, which was one of the best Arts colleges in\nIndia. Thereafter, I applied to various colleges in Europe for my master\u2019s\ndegree and I got offers from some notable ones namely LSE, IHEID, SSE and\nBoston University, but all were with partial or no scholarship. I also got an\noffer from Hanken at the same time and I was excited to know that Hanken was\noffering me the premium scholarship which covered all costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this point I was in a fix. I really wanted to\nattend LSE or IHEID because, obviously, they have name & fame. But I\ncouldn\u2019t afford to pay that much money for a two years\u2019 master\u2019s degree. I was\neven considering taking out a loan to fund my studies. But at the same time, I\nfelt like I would be under a lot of financial burden which I didn\u2019t want when I\nwas studying. After a lot of thinking and discussion with my family, I decided\nto entirely drop the option of taking out a loan. It was hard, and\nheartbreaking, especially after I had received the whole welcome package from\nLSE by post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems here like I was only interested in attending\nLSE, but honestly at that time, I had heard about a few colleges which were\nfamous and that\u2019s what I thought was right. I hadn\u2019t thought much about the\nperfect fit for me and other very important aspects like, individual attention,\nresearch output (since I wanted to go into research), and location and social\nlife. I am someone who likes peaceful and clean environments and I enjoy\nindividual attention in classes. I am also someone who would perform much\nbetter in the absence of any kind of external stress, be it financial or\nsocial. This is when I realized that going to Hanken was a great idea because many\nof its characteristics like location, staff to student ratio and notable\nresearch output were exactly what I was looking for in a school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I decided to research more about Hanken. To my utter\nsurprise, I found out so much more about Hanken that I had not read before. Hanken\nwas ranked 5th<\/sup> in the global U-Multirank university 2016 rankings\nbecause of its research output, outperforming 1300 other universities from\nEurope and the US. This was possible mainly due to Hanken\u2019s continuous\nencouragement of its top researchers to publish in top journals and to\ncooperate internationally. Hanken ranks very well on citation rate and top\ncited publications. What this means is that Hanken\u2019s researchers\u2019 publications\nhave been cited many times in top universities\u2019 research, especially Ivy League\nuniversities. It also has a good rank in international joint publications.\nThere are only two European universities among the top 10 measured according to\ntop cited publications indicator. One of these is Hanken, which again proves\nthe high quality of the research conducted at Hanken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I arrived at Hanken, I expected a lot of\ndifficulty in terms of settling down and getting used to the course structure\nand the teaching method here. However, again to my elation, everything went\nsmoothly like a charm. The Master\u2019s committee was very approachable, the professors\nwere helpful, and I was walked through the initial settling down so that I\nwould be able to start studying for my courses immediately. I took some courses\nat Aalto from the Helsinki GSE (available to all Hanken students) and I really\nliked those courses because they were practical. In the next period I took all\nthe courses from Hanken and they were research oriented and I liked the\ndifficulty level. They weren\u2019t easy but at the same time if one attended the\nlectures and worked on the assignments regularly, they would be able to\ncomplete it well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The courses at Hanken, including the courses available\nthrough Helsinki GSE, are of a very broad range such that one who has a\nresearch interest would be able to perform as well as someone who wants to go\ninto the corporate field. However, since I took mainly those courses which\ncatered to my interests, I can talk about those. I took some microeconometrics\nand labour economics courses during my second semester and I loved their course\nstructure. We were expected to read and review various research papers, which\nexpanded my knowledge base and prepared me for my own journey towards my\nMaster\u2019s thesis and eventually PhD. We were also expected to write our own\npapers on some selected topics. I thoroughly enjoyed this process and would\nrecommend this to everyone, irrespective of their future goals after Master\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apart from the good quality of courses, I also have\naccess to the vast libraries of all the three universities: Aalto, U Helsinki\nand Hanken since I was a GSE student. These libraries give me access to top\nonline resources, for example the American Economic Review and JSTOR, for free\nand I could access hundreds of thousands of research papers and journals from\nmy home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At Hanken, I\u2019ve met wonderful professors who are very keen on helping students understand concepts as well as give tips to advance their careers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is just my first year here and I have yet to explore more things in my second year now! <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have any questions regarding the courses, timelines, or anything regarding the student life at Hanken, feel free to drop me an email at reetuparna.vishwanath@student.hanken.fi<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m happy to\nhelp (I have more free time during quarantine anyway!).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am an Economics master\u2019s student at Hanken, I want to pursue PhD after this, and I want to ultimately go into research. In this post I am going to walk you through why I chose Hanken over some other great Universities and what Hanken offers me for my future goals. I completed my Economics … <\/p>\n