Zhang

Today was the day when my thesis director agreed to sign on to supervise my thesis. Now I am finally on the track of graduation. My research advisor, Don Ostrowski, was great to help me with my initial process, and passed my initial proposal and narrowed down my potential thesis directors. My thesis director, Richard Cooper, was generously agreeed to help and supervise my thesis. Now the time is back to me again.

Through this thesis writing process, for example, I have learned that I will never expect too much from others, but never settle little for myself. I have talked to many people on my research topic, but some, who I thought would help, were just not interested. Some, who I did not expect, ended up giving me a lot of help. It is true that my standard is high, as I often joked with my friends that I wanted to a Nobel Prize winner, or likely, to direct my thesis. Unless I got a Ph. D in Economics, there is no way to find a Nobel Laureate to supervise my thesis.

Overall, I am honored to have Professor Cooper to supervise my thesis, as well as many friends helping me with comments and editing. Today was one of those happiest days in my life.

It is interesting to think of happiness. There are many versions of definitions, from psychological interpretation to economic definition, from mental notion to constitutional stipulation. Happiness perhaps is just a feeling. I remembered that the most popular course at Harvard based upon the number of students enrollment was happiness, or something related to happiness and psychology course in 2007, according an article on the New York Times.  Many psychologists, economists, and doctors are looking for happiness in academic settings. Many scholars tried to explain anything with psychology due to the emerging trend today. Many economists tried to explained economic phenomenon by borrowing psychological experiment. Many lawyers tried to explain the legal reality by exerting to psychological theories. Many doctors are trying to figure out how actually the brain works . . . There are many theories and there are emerging articles on such topic.

What I learn from many published experiments, and my personal experience is that my feeling of happiness is that I never expect too much from others, and never settle too little for myself. It has been enforced in many interesting experiments, such as . . .

To be continued . . .