Stephen Bruestle is a second year graduate student living in the cutthroat world of the Economics Ph.D. program of the University of Virginia—a world for the brave, the intelligent and the crazed. He does not know yet what field of economics he will study—everything seems far too interesting to surrender—but he does know that he will study it with integrity, commitment and enthusiasm.

Stephen Bruestle is currently trying to publish two articles that he coauthored with Professors Crain and Kelly of Lafayette College—his undergraduate institution. It was the process of forging these papers that taught him the excitement and fascination of economics research; he plans to explore the versatile world of economics through the process of writing academic papers until the day he dies.