Quality rules. Not.

One of my colleagues from UCSD office came to me with question whether I know anything about Stata. Yes, as a theoretical micro economist, I know (very) little* about Stata. And the reason why she asked was that she is going to teach a course in econometrics, heavily based on Stata, in two weeks.

I have to say that this was the last piece necessary to crack my mental health today. Why should I even try to write a decent paper/dissertation? The world is probably ruled by people like this lady, who are paid (and will surely embellish their CV) for doing something they have no idea about, who cannot possibly do a good job for the students yet do it anyway. When the rule "If you want to teach something, you should know something about it!" lost its power?

More broadly (and depressingly) - what I'm doing here? Why didn't I go to the beach (or National Park) like a friend from unnamed Central European country, who came as a grad student with a finished PhD. and who keeps complaining how little opportunities we have here in San Diego "to socialize". (BTW: he even complaints about how much people from his country complaint.).

I hate days like these...




* There is no field further away from Stata then theoretical microeconomics.