Instructor of record

Selected comments:

  • Enumerating all I have learned in this course is not feasible. I genuinely feel transformed as a budding economist in terms of the knowledge and skills (e.g. critically examining the econometric validity of academic research) I've gained. I would strongly recommend that undergraduates and master's students studying economics enroll in such a course in order to have the opportunity to see how the fundamentals, as well as extensions of formal economic models apply to different empirical questions.

  • I learned the theoretical underpinnings of the field of Labor Economics as well as their contemporary applications…She encouraged discussion and made us feel comfortable in the necessary struggle of developing familiarity with the language and calculations. ... I developed confidence in interpreting and creating visual depictions through charts and tables. I got to experience the satisfaction of understanding formulas on a granular level and successfully identifying, replicating, and applying them. I really enjoyed presenting my findings and grew significantly as a communicator in economics.

  • This class should be a core class due to the immense value of labor economics for everyone that will be in the labor market working in any capacity for all industries. Professor Jiang did a great job at teaching us to learn and understand academic paper, point out questions that we would have about the results, and think about further extensions for each paper we discussed in class.

  •  Ways to improve: None. Among the top two courses I have taken thus far.

Teaching Assistantships

  • Advanced Microeconomics (Susan Elmes), Columbia University - 2023 Spring

  • Introduction to Econometrics (Michael Best, Seyhan Erden), Columbia University - 2022 Spring, 2020 Spring*

  • Political Economy (Alessandra Casella), Columbia University - 2021 Fall, 2020 Fall

  • Principles of Economics (Prajit Dutta), Columbia University - 2018 Fall

Selected Comments:

• Michelle is a great Teaching Assistant who I have always found to be approachable, kind, and incredibly insightful. Her section lectures were fundamental to my success in the course and she provided great additional explanations to course material. I would take another course to have her as a TA again. 

• Michelle was so helpful, her recitations were the most conducive element to my understanding in this class. She was extremely concise, made coding clear and accessible (although I had never done it before). She was always open to questions, and super approachable for both class related and career/economics research related matters. It is palpable how passionate Michelle is about teaching and economics, it was a pleasure being in her recitation and getting to exchange with her.

• Michelle is very personable and willing to offer her genuine and constructive advice. As a student who aspire to pursue a PhD program, her simple presence can reinforce my idea. She is also very patient with my often non-polished questions and effectively spells out the key points. As a student it is an absolute joy to talk to her and learn from her.

A full set evaluations can be found here.

*Note: Evaluations were not collected by Columbia in Spring and Summer 2020 due to COVID.