Imagine that you are going to graduate from college and just started looking for a job, or applying for graduate school. The recruiter would probably look at your resume and applications, then make an estimation of your human capital before making the final decision. So what is human capital？
I would like to categorize them into two types. One type is more related to "what you have learned to do" and the other is more about "what you will be able to do". For example, "what you have learned to do" reflects your basic knowledge (math, statistics, economic theories, etc), or your skills you acquired (programming skills, communication skills, etc). And those might be easier to evaluate from your resume and transcript. The other group of human capital might include your creativity, critical thinking, ability to learn new things, etc. I think those attributes are good predictors of what you will perform in a new environment.
Maybe I can share my experience as a current graduate student and how that affects my understanding of human capital. I double-majored in Economics and Cognitive Psychology when I studied at UIUC. Then I went straight into a phd program in psychological and brain sciences after I graduated in 2017. The main research interest of my current lab is human vision and computer vision, which is quite interdisciplinary such that we need to understand cognitive psychology, neuroscience, statistics, and computer science. Besides me, most of the other graduate students in my lab come from engineering backgrounds. So at the beginning of my first year in graduate school, it was a little bit intimidating because I had a feeling of lacking some skills/knowledge others have(or human capital).
Then one day I had this conversation with my advisor about what he usually looks for when he recruits students. And what he said is "Yes it is always hard to find the right person. Some people have strong backgrounds but lack of motivation, or not be able to manage work and life balance. While some might don't have a lot of skills yet, but can pick up things quickly. If they have enough motivation, they can do awesome research." By that time, I realized that maybe I was indeed short of some specific knowledge or skills, but I had some other attributes that my advisor valued.
I guess this is related to what I defined as two types of human capitals: one relates more to your history, one relates more to your future. Now when I look back to my experience in UIUC, I really appreciate what I learned as an Economics major. One important ability for me is to understand psychology theories from an economics perspective. In one experiment where I studied human eye movements in visual search tasks, I would imagine people trying to maximize their utility (gaining information about the scene/objects) and minimize their costs (time and efforts to look around) at the same time. I often switch back and forth from a psychological point of view and an economic point of view, which helps me to understand my research better and look at an issue from different perspectives.
Another thing I benefit a lot from, and also was unique about this class, was the weekly discussion group Professor Arvan led. I was always not the most active student in the class. Partially because I was not that confident with my English as an international student, plus I was just too shy to speak in class. Therefore I participated in the weekly discussion group with two other students, thinking it was a good chance for me to step out of my comfort zone, and engage in deeper conversations. I was so glad that I participated in the discussion group. Not that it directly helped me academically per se, but the topics we discussed opened my mind and made me think more critically. I also enjoyed reading other students' blogs and found myself resonating with others and learning from others' experience. I would say all that experience became my human capital as well.
In this blog, I just want to share my experience and my understanding of human capital. I truly encourage you all to try something new and engage in new conversations because the more new experience you have, the more likely you'll gradually find connections between those experience. And that means you're more likely to have the process of "transfer of learning". The concept of transfer learning comes from educational psychology, which means the ability to transfer knowledge/skills from one context to another. For example, what you learn in this class can help you to understand another economics class. Or maybe playing video games improves your ability to react faster in playing tennis. In that sense, transfer your learning is a great way to expand your human capital and gain more from this class and beyond.
I would like to categorize them into two types. One type is more related to "what you have learned to do" and the other is more about "what you will be able to do". For example, "what you have learned to do" reflects your basic knowledge (math, statistics, economic theories, etc), or your skills you acquired (programming skills, communication skills, etc). And those might be easier to evaluate from your resume and transcript. The other group of human capital might include your creativity, critical thinking, ability to learn new things, etc. I think those attributes are good predictors of what you will perform in a new environment.
Maybe I can share my experience as a current graduate student and how that affects my understanding of human capital. I double-majored in Economics and Cognitive Psychology when I studied at UIUC. Then I went straight into a phd program in psychological and brain sciences after I graduated in 2017. The main research interest of my current lab is human vision and computer vision, which is quite interdisciplinary such that we need to understand cognitive psychology, neuroscience, statistics, and computer science. Besides me, most of the other graduate students in my lab come from engineering backgrounds. So at the beginning of my first year in graduate school, it was a little bit intimidating because I had a feeling of lacking some skills/knowledge others have(or human capital).
Then one day I had this conversation with my advisor about what he usually looks for when he recruits students. And what he said is "Yes it is always hard to find the right person. Some people have strong backgrounds but lack of motivation, or not be able to manage work and life balance. While some might don't have a lot of skills yet, but can pick up things quickly. If they have enough motivation, they can do awesome research." By that time, I realized that maybe I was indeed short of some specific knowledge or skills, but I had some other attributes that my advisor valued.
I guess this is related to what I defined as two types of human capitals: one relates more to your history, one relates more to your future. Now when I look back to my experience in UIUC, I really appreciate what I learned as an Economics major. One important ability for me is to understand psychology theories from an economics perspective. In one experiment where I studied human eye movements in visual search tasks, I would imagine people trying to maximize their utility (gaining information about the scene/objects) and minimize their costs (time and efforts to look around) at the same time. I often switch back and forth from a psychological point of view and an economic point of view, which helps me to understand my research better and look at an issue from different perspectives.
Another thing I benefit a lot from, and also was unique about this class, was the weekly discussion group Professor Arvan led. I was always not the most active student in the class. Partially because I was not that confident with my English as an international student, plus I was just too shy to speak in class. Therefore I participated in the weekly discussion group with two other students, thinking it was a good chance for me to step out of my comfort zone, and engage in deeper conversations. I was so glad that I participated in the discussion group. Not that it directly helped me academically per se, but the topics we discussed opened my mind and made me think more critically. I also enjoyed reading other students' blogs and found myself resonating with others and learning from others' experience. I would say all that experience became my human capital as well.
In this blog, I just want to share my experience and my understanding of human capital. I truly encourage you all to try something new and engage in new conversations because the more new experience you have, the more likely you'll gradually find connections between those experience. And that means you're more likely to have the process of "transfer of learning". The concept of transfer learning comes from educational psychology, which means the ability to transfer knowledge/skills from one context to another. For example, what you learn in this class can help you to understand another economics class. Or maybe playing video games improves your ability to react faster in playing tennis. In that sense, transfer your learning is a great way to expand your human capital and gain more from this class and beyond.
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ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the post. I'm going to respond from bottom to top in what you said. Even now, I remain surprised that you participated in the discussion group, but I suppose it is an indicator that some students who are shy in the all class setting might benefit from smaller group interactions, and maybe I'll try to do some of that this semester, if I can figure out how to pull it off.
ReplyDeleteOn the economics and psychology overlap, it may amuse you to know that I've been reading some old essays by Maslow partly as a way to get some insight into how to motivate students in this class. So, at least this economist thinks that looking at psychological explanations is useful and I believe both teachers and managers can benefit from moving back and forth between an economics perspective and an alternative psychological perspective.
I liked your division of human capital between concrete skills based on past education/training and other capacities that are future directed. But I want to note that there is this debate between nature and nurture. The human capital part is the nurture part. A lot of students sell themselves short and over estimate the nature part. (Edison said genius was 1% inspiration (nature) and 99% perspiration (nurture).) . More recently Carol Dweck has advocated for a growth mindset. If students think they can grow these capacities they will put in the necessary time and effort in learning to produce good results. Students should understand that doing so is an important choice that they make.
Personally I feel more comfortable talking in a small group. And the discussion group was really beneficial to me. So I really want to encourage students who're shy to participate.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a growth mindset is really important. I actually read one of Carol's paper about how a growth mindset can be really beneficial for students in academic achievements across all socioeconomic status. Whether students believe they can grow their capacity could be influential.