Professor of Economics

Grinnell highlights:
After growing up in Minnesota, Kevin McIntyre, a member of the class of 1994, visited Grinnell as a prospective student and says he immediately knew he wanted to come here. Besides being a double-major (He advises current students to double-major as well; he says its like "two for the price of one.") in Economics and Mathematics, while at Grinnell, he was a member of the football team and a member of the Debate Union. He says that his football experience was one of the two or three great experiences he had at Grinnell. "I'm embarrassed at how bad we were...Really embarrassed...We were probably one of the worst college football teams in history. Still, those are my best memories...I loved it more than I can say."

He offers much praise of Grinnell College and the faculty at Grinnell. Speaking of one Grinnell professor, he says "When I was teaching [as a teaching assistant at the University of Virginia], I stole a lot of his teaching styles and techniques." He says that at Grinnell, "I saw my professors having a really good time doing what they were doing," and that helped inspire him to become a professor.

Career path:
After graduating in 1994, McIntyre enrolled in the University of Virginia's graduate program. Although it usually takes students five or six years, after only four years of graduate study, McIntyre received his Ph.D. in economics. Immediately afterwards, he became a economics research consultant in the Philadelphia area. After consulting for private companies and governmental agencies for two years, in 2000, he followed his heart, taking a large pay cut, and traded his consulting job for his dream job- being a college professor. He now has a tenure-track position at Western Maryland College, a few miles from downtown Baltimore, teaching International Economics, Statistics, and Macroeconomics. He hopes that in the coming years he will also teach Econometrics and courses dealing with the history of economics.

Skills/ personal traits useful in the field:
The liberal arts education is what he values as the highest asset of Grinnell. Praising Grinnell and the importance of the liberal arts education, Mr. McIntyre says, "No degree, with maybe a few exceptions, is going to give you a set of skills you will be able to apply in the 'real world,' but with a liberal arts degree you know how to think critically and to ask questions, how to learn, and how to communicate...You can take a person with an English degree, for example, from Grinnell and put them in a million different situations and they will do fine."

For students who intend to further their study, McIntyre says Grinnell graduates are advantaged because of the type of liberal arts instruction Grinnell offers. "All things being equal," he says, "you will be smarter than your counterparts [at other universities and colleges]."

Advice/ outlook for the field:
Besides jokingly advising current Grinnell students that, "The fine arts center is a good place to warm up on the way home from the bar on cold winter nights", McIntyre offers several pieces of advice.

He advises students to take full advantage of the opportunities Grinnell offers like the study abroad program. Studying abroad in London, he says, helped him to become a fuller person. Traveling through Europe, and living on his own helped him to be a more responsible and independent person.

He also suggests that recent graduates, when seeking employment, should advertise themselves as Grinnell graduates (even on the east and west coasts). "A lot of people know how good of a college Grinnell is," he says, "When I was on the academic job market, I didn't market myself as a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, I advertised myself as a Grinnell graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia."

Lastly, he urges graduates to expand their horizons, taking the best job offer, whether it be in another country or in a state far from home. He says though, that one of the most important pieces of advice he can offer is for students to always follow their instinct and heart.