First-Person
Kate Ashley
PhD Student, Operations Management
"Interesting research results are often counter-intuitive. You take what is known and try to demonstrate that the opposite can be true. What better way is there of Questioning the Status Quo?"
Ron Berman
PhD Candidates, Marketing
"It was very important to me to study in a large public university. Berkeley has unrivalled diversity among the students and the faculty."
Malachy English
PhD Student, Accounting
"The core curriculum gives you a solid grounding in many fields and the tools you need to do effective research. Beyond that, the curriculum is cross-disciplinary. You can take classes in any number of departments."
Farshad Haghpanah
PhD Student, Finance
"Professor Nicolae Garleanu's class in Discrete-Time Asset Pricing was a great class. It was mentally challenging. And because asset pricing interests me as a research area, it gave me real insights into the kind of research I will be doing."
Pablo I. Hernandez-Lagos
PhD Candidate, Business and Public Policy
"It was amazing to sit in Professor Oliver Williamson's seminar — a Nobel laureate — and listen to him invite rivals and differing opinions from the other people in the room. Being open to challenge, and being willing to refute challenges, are important here."
Lucy Hu
PhD Student, Business and Public Policy
"The 'theory of the firm' is at the heart of the Business & Public Policy discipline, and Professor Oliver Williamson is the driving intellect behind the theory. It all started at Berkeley, so what better place to study it?"
Brian Johnson
PhD Student, Finance
"Even in the first year, the professors emphasize research in ways that will help me hit the ground running when my course work is over and I focus on research."
Sanket Korgaonkar
PhD Student, Finance and Real Estate
"My research straddles the areas of real estate and financial economics. I am fortunate to be working with professors whose own research explores that same intersection. Another interest is the interplay between macro-economics and the banking industry."
Jeffrey Kuhn
PhD Student, Business and Public Policy
"The Berkeley-Haas PhD curriculum combines theoretical and empirical analysis for a thoroughly grounded approach. Beginning in the first year, students are immersed in the foundational literature of the field. We learn how to look at the same subject from many different perspectives and analytical lenses."