【英语生活】当个优等生有多重要？

After years of hard work I am about to finish my degree in economics. Maybe I shouldn't say “years of hard work”. I skipped quite a lot. Now I'm worried that in the middle of a recession, I'm going to graduate with a lousy degree. Will reading “The Undercover Economist” get me through? Or should I be in the library?

George, London

Dear George,

Flattery will do you no good: I shall give my usual frank advice. You should be worried about graduating in the middle of a recession. I've written before about the research of Till Marco von Wachter, who estimates that graduating in a recession depresses your earnings for many years thereafter. You should also be worried about graduating with a bad degree, but not for the reasons you think.

Researchers have known for a long time that graduates with first-class degrees are more likely to end up with a job or a postgraduate place than graduates with third-class degrees. The question is whether this is because of the degree class itself, or because both employers and examiners are independently picking up the same traits. It's hard to say, because employers – with access to references and interim test results – may have much more information than researchers do.

New research by Giorgio Di Pietro looks at data from an unnamed UK university. Di Pietro compares candidates with identical – or very similar – test scores, but who (because of the arbitrariness of the dividing line, or because of the discretion of the board of examiners) are awarded a different class of degree.

The good news is that once your underlying scores are taken into account, your degree class seems to make no difference to your chance of a job or further place. The bad news is that no matter how hard you work from now on, your fate has probably been sealed already.

Questions to economist@ft.com

亲爱的经济学家：

经过多年的努力，我即将获得经济学学位。或许我不应该谈什么“多年努力”——我经常逃课。眼下我担心的是，在经济衰退之际，我却得拿着普通学位毕业。阅读“卧底经济学家”栏目能让我度过难关吗？或者我还是应该去图书馆？

乔治(George)，伦敦

亲爱的乔治：

恭维对你没好处，我将一如既往地坦率建言。你应该为在经济衰退期间毕业感到担忧。之前我已经谈到过蒂尔?马可?冯?韦希特尔(Till Marco von Wachter)的相关研究。韦希特尔估计，在衰退期间毕业，将会影响你今后许多年的收入。你还应该担忧的是拿着普通学位毕业，但原因并非你所想的那样。

研究人员早就知道，与拿着三级学位的毕业生相比，拥有一级学位的毕业生更有可能找到工作或攻读研究生。问题在于，这是因为学位等级本身，还是因为雇主和考官各自制定了相同的标准。很难说是因为雇主——能够看到推荐信和期中考试成绩——可能拥有比研究人员多得多的信息。

乔治?迪?彼得罗(Giorgio Di Pietro)进行的新研究调查了英国一所未具名大学的数据。彼得罗将考试成绩相同（或非常接近）、但被授予不同等级学位（要么因为划分学位等级的随意性，要么因为审查委员会的判断力）的候选人进行了比较。

好消息是，一旦考虑你的基础分数，你的学位等级对你的工作机会或发展空间就无关紧要了。而坏消息是，从现在开始，不管如何努力，你的命运或许已经注定。

提问请发送至economist@ft.com

译者/君悦