Student Profile: Shilong Jia, International Policy Action Lab '22

Shilong Jia is a third-year Master of Management student at Peking University (PKU). A non-traditional student, he enrolled in graduate school after seven years working in the software and internet technology industry as a product researcher, a development engineer, and eventually a senior manager. Seeking to improve his managerial toolkit, he joined PKU’s Master of Management program in 2020. Jia is currently focusing on management research, and he has served as a teaching and research assistant in entrepreneurship, innovation, and strategy.

“Though I worked as a senior manager, I knew very well what I lacked—compared to traditional business students, I had a knowledge gap in econometrics. Fortunately, IPAL filled this gap for me. With IPAL’s practical training in the statistical coding language, STATA, I quickly mastered econometrics skills through my capstone project. Both the classroom setting and the capstone helped take my management skills in a new direction.”

Jia also said that learning from professors at both University of Chicago and PKU helped him to grasp econometric concepts. “I learned so much from the instructors at both Peking University and UChicago. Dr. Qin Xuezheng, our IPAL instructor at PKU, offered very organized lectures. As compared to my self-study and learning, he built a more systematic framework that opened my eyes to econometric theories.” 

This accessible introduction to basic theories and principles enabled Jia to grasp a more advanced level of econometrics by the end of the course, especially when writing his capstone project. In the capstone, Jia used the time series regression method—a statistical method for predicting a future response based on response history—to make several reports. He also took on the challenge of creating a data visualization of his findings. “It was a stressful process that required hard work and proactive communication with the instructor,” Jia said. “Every day, I made five or six changes in my manuscripts during Professor Austin Wright’s office hours. I experimented with various tables and images to optimize my final output and received positive feedback that directed me on the path to completion.”

Furthermore, IPAL enhanced Jia's research skills in management.  “IPAL taught me how to conduct quantitative management research, building upon my prior qualitative research basis.” This newfound skill led to an exciting development while Jia worked as a research assistant at the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management and at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. "In addition to participating in the IPAL program, two of my scholarly papers were accepted by the Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2022, and I reported my papers at an academic conference in Seattle."

IPAL not only helped with Jia's academic pursuit but also met his research interest. “The IPAL curriculum built a bridge between my prior knowledge in economics and the more advanced econometrics lessons I plan to take at PKU,” he said.