The African School of Economics community once again organized its 3rd one-to-ones chat session, a forum for students to interact with a researcher via WhatsApp.

The guest was Louphou Coulibaly, a 4th year PhD candidate from the University of Montreal in Canada. The conversations between ASE students and Mr. Coulibaly revolved around macroeconomic theory topics including business cycles, monetary policy, macroeconomic effects of financial crises, and optional financial regulation, which are Mr. Coulibaly’s areas of interest.

According to Mr. Coulibaly, doing a PhD in Economics is the best way to learn more about economics and thus be able to participate in the development of students’ respective countries. ASE students also gained insights from him about the best way to proceed when writing a Master thesis in Economics. He said that first, students need to be involved in and love what they want to do as researchers. Next, they should find the field in which they are interested, then find a supervisor, and finally choose a relevant research question. Mr. Coulibaly’s experience sharing and contributions were very helpful to students. At the end of the session, Mr. Coulibaly said that what was achieved through this chat session was very great and that he expects to have another opportunity to interact with ASE students.

These sessions are an initiative of Simplice Adjisse, an ASE pre-doctoral fellow and moderator of the event. Further WhatsApp discussions are yet to be organized, and students are looking forward to the next guest.