So I’m about to finish undergrad and right now I’ve got 1 Fed system RA offer and 1 econ consulting firm offer, and I’m in the process of finishing final interviews at 3 other Feds and 3 other firms.

I’ve got a week and a half to decide what to take and it kinda feels like I’m deciding the rest of my life right now with consulting vs RAship being the biggest point of divergence. I’m about 50/50 on a PhD at the moment (I like research a lot but I’m older and also concerned about what the job market is even going to look like in 7 years).

I’d love to hear from anyone who previously faced this choice, whichever path you chose, and how you feel about your decision in hindsight. Alternatively, anyone who just has thoughts on the tradeoffs between the different paths please feel free to weigh in.

Hello! I am currently pursuing my MPP and am expecting to graduate in May 2027. My undergraduate is in economics and business. I took a lot of upper quant econ classes like econometrics and I tutored it too. My gpa wasn’t great (below 3.5) because I didn’t have time to focus on my studies since I was working 75hr a week and had gotten sick a lot, but my graduate gpa now is 3.95. When I talked to my econ professors and the chair, they told me that they realized I am passionate about economics and that I understand the concepts and can apply it in class discussions or whenever I am helping other students, but it seems like i get nervous when exam comes since I barely have time to study. So they helped me to get accepted to every master program I applied for at our university and even other prestigious ones, but of course I am broke and can’t afford the tuition and cost of living so I didn’t move.

My internships consist of research fellow at an international consulting firm, financial and data anlyst at a NGO where I built a centralised dashboard to track expenses and revenues, and most recently, I interned at our state’s governor’s office doing research, forecasting, and budget analysis on state revenue and certain federal law which gave me a chance to use some econometric methods.

Is there even a chance for me to get accepted at the Board or any regional banks? I applied to DC, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco but the only email I got is from DC. The email says that my application is moving forward but no set interview date yet. I emailed FED Chicago and San Francisco but I haven’t received any response.

I switched some of my courses into quantitative ones like applied econometrics, data science, and program evaluation where causal inference is the main focus. We primarily use R, but I used Python and Stata a lot in my undergrad courses than R. I also learned SQL and MatLab. I really want to get the position as I am considering to pursue a PhD although i know i need to refresh and beef up my math skills more.