Students within the program pursue summer employment for two key reasons. First, summer employment serves as a way to make money to supplement income during the time of the year when the standard stipend is not providing income. Second, summer employment serves as an opportunity to gain valuable experience to put on a C.V. Before I proceed to share recent summer employment experiences of students within our program, I want to highlight that opportunities for domestic students may vary from those available to international students. Here is a sample of summer employment experiences of our Ph.D. students dating back to around 2015.
College of Social Sciences and Humanities Summer RA Positions: Starting summer 2019, Northeastern's CSSH has implemented a program coordinating with CSSH faculty members to make summer RA positions available to CSSH Ph.D. students. These positions come with a full semester stipend. Three Economics Ph.D. students were selected for these summer positions during the summer 2019: Farzaneh Nekui, John Fallon, and Urbashee Paul. Two of these positions were with a faculty member within the economics department, and one with a faculty member in PPUA.
Economics Department Summer Courses: Each summer the economics department makes available about 5 summer courses at the principles level to be taught by Ph.D. students. These classes span one of the two summer sessions and pay about $6,000-$7,000. To be eligible to teach a summer course you must be past qualifying and field exams. More students apply to teach these courses than there are courses available, and preference is given to those who have taught within recitations and achieved high evaluation scores.
Summer Associate Positions at Consulting Firms: Each summer our Ph.D. candidates apply for summer consulting position at Boston consulting firms and firms in D.C. These positions are very competitive, and typically only given to those in the later years of the Ph.D. program. These positions pay very well, typically at a weekly rate comparable to that of an entry level Associate. In recent years, Pukar KC, Urbashee Paul and Yunus Cem Yılmaz worked at Analysis Group as a summer associate, and Shawn Kilpatrick worked at Brattle Group as a summer associate.
Boston Fed Summer Internship Positions: The Boston Fed (along with the other Fed branches) has a summer internship program. Interns can work in any number of departments, but typically economics students would be placed in the research department, supervision regulation and credit, or regional and community outreach. Undergrads and graduate students can apply, and preference is not necessarily given to grad students in the application process. These positions last about 12 weeks and pay about $30 an hour. Recent graduates students to work as interns in the research department at the Boston Fed include Rick Paulsen (2 summers) and David Hummel.
Harvard Extension Teaching Assistants: Each summer Professor Vicentini teaches courses at Harvard Extension and is able to hire a TA. Past students to work in this role include Arvind Sharma and Jiapei Guo.
Amazon hires PhD students for summer internships (as does Facebook and other tech companies):
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/intern-economics-at-amazon-2238585915/
Students frequently find summer internships on the web using tools like LinkedIn and Indeed.
If you are an IO student interested in economic consulting, Prof. Kwoka and to a much lesser extent Professors Dana, Reimers, and Vicentini, have contacts and these companies.
With Northeastern, faculty in economics, the business school, the public policy school, and even sometimes the law school and the Bouve school of health hire our students to help with econometrics.