From a chalkboard in Evans Hall to a PhD at Wharton: How one equation changed the way Larry Lin (’25) saw the world

Which specific class or professor made you realize, 'Okay, I’m definitely an Economics major'?
Economics 101A, Microeconomic Theory, with Cecile Gaubert. I took the class in my sophomore fall, and it was the first time I really saw the beauty of economics. She showed how, with relatively simple math, you could capture powerful ideas about how the world works.

One moment that stuck with me was when she derived the Slutsky equation for labor supply. She showed that labor supply is fundamentally a balance between two forces: the income effect and the substitution effect. It was such a simple yet powerful result. With just a few lines on the chalkboard, you could formalize the idea that economic choices are ultimately about tradeoffs.

That moment crystallizes what drew me to economics and the goal of academia – to take intuitive ideas and formalize them in a way that changes how we think the world works. Seeing that elegance for the first time inspired me to continue studying economics and ultimately pursue research myself.

How has saying 'I studied Economics at Berkeley' opened doors for you in your career?
It has opened doors in two main ways: credibility and connection. Berkeley Economics has an incredibly strong reputation in academia, and people know the training is rigorous.

As a student, you are learning within a long intellectual tradition. If you go to Evans 648, you can see the portraits of Berkeley’s six Nobel laureates in economic sciences hanging on the walls. It’s a reminder that you are studying economics in a place that helped shape the field itself. That environment sets a very high bar and gives you strong foundations.

Berkeley Economics has also created a surprising number of connections. Many faculty and PhD students I’ve met have some connection to Berkeley – whether they previously studied or conducted research there. Whenever it comes up, there’s an immediate bond, and it often opens the door to deeper conversations about ideas and research.

Beyond lecture halls, was there a specific club or organization that felt like your home base at Berkeley, and how did that community shape you?
Outside of coursework and research, I spent most of my hours with the Berkeley Economic Review (BER), Berkeley’s undergraduate economics journal. To me, BER represented the boundless potential of bringing together smart, motivated, and curious students. Every week, we would gather in a room in Evans to discuss papers as part of a peer-review exercise. Someone might kick things off by presenting a paper and their initial reactions, and soon the discussion would spiral into questions, critiques, and competing interpretations. Before long, we’d be in heated debates about whether the paper truly made a contribution or whether the methods were rigorous enough. And then it would be 10 pm, and we’d still be there, talking long after everyone else had left Evans. It was really special.

I credit BER with much of my intellectual development. Those repeated exercises in identifying important questions, challenging one another, and debating methodological rigor mirror the seminar discussions I now have in my PhD. It felt like what you imagine college to be like when you’re in high school: people who genuinely care about ideas, debates that stretch late into the night, and learning from one another in ways that can’t be replicated in the lecture hall.

But BER was not only intellectually formative, it was also the place where I built my closest community at Berkeley. BER brings together an incredibly diverse group of people under a shared interest in economics, from transfer students and carillon players to exchange students and llama tamers. Becoming friends with everyone broadened my horizons and exposed me to perspectives I might never have encountered otherwise. And because people pursued such different paths, I learned just as much from conversations about careers in academia, business, law, or journalism as I did from the papers we discussed. BER shaped both my intellectual life and many of my closest friendships at Berkeley, and it truly is the heart of the Berkeley Economics community.

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Where has Berkeley Economics landed you? Our alumni community is our greatest pride. Whether you're in academia, industry, or forging your own path, we want to celebrate your journey. Reach out to alumni@econ.berkeley.edu to share your post-grad story with the next generation of Berkeley economists.