Partner Spotlight: NERA Economic Consulting
We were excited to collaborate with NERA for a second academic year and thrilled to welcome them into the school building for the first time. Students learned about behavioral economic concepts, correlation vs causation, incentives, and the Game theory/Nash equilibrium. NERA employees shared a reflection on their experience in the classroom.
Below is a reflection written by Alexa Rasmussen and Karina Thanawala, Research Associates in the New York City Office.
“During training back in July, we sat in on various presentations that informed us about different opportunities to get involved at NERA outside of billable work. One of these presentations, involving NERA’s partnership with Elevate NY, a mentorship initiative for underserved students in New York City schools, stood out to us. Because both of us were involved with different mentorship initiatives in college, we were instantly drawn to the program. We were quickly welcomed into the NERA-Elevate WP/NY team, and decided to teach our students Game Theory, an economic concept that we both shared a passion for. We met for a few hours each week leading up to the presentation date, did a rehearsal for our NERA colleagues who are also involved in the Elevate program, and received invaluable feedback.
We took this feedback with us to our presentation on Tuesday, March 22nd, and had an absolutely spectacular time with the students. We began by breaking the students into small groups and playing a model simulation of the “Golden Balls” game, a more interactive version of the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma, and then came together as a group to discuss how the game could be modeled with economics. We then discussed different applications of game theory and had students share examples of where they use game theory in their everyday lives. We went into this experience with confidence that we could make this presentation interactive, yet were concerned if the students would feel comfortable enough with us to actively participate. Our concerns were quickly set aside, as the students were all very engaged and excited participants throughout the lesson.
We are beyond grateful that we are able to participate in this experience with Elevate NY. Having the opportunity to work directly with local New York students and share our passion for economics and its applications was truly a unique and empowering experience. There is a lot of power behind mentorship and seeing what we learn in school can evolve into. We have both been privileged with the opportunity to learn through mentorship, and this was a great opportunity to take on that role for someone else. Not only is it refreshing to see students so eager to learn about our industry and the type of work we do, but it is also empowering to be in a position where we feel capable of further educating and facilitating these types of learning experiences. Further, it is an invaluable experience for us personally to take a step back from the everyday work we do and attempt to make this material both entertaining and digestible to a younger audience. We absolutely recommend getting involved with the NERA-Elevate NY partnership if you have not had the chance to do so yet, and we can’t wait to join the students in the classroom again.”
