Along with vying for best undergraduate paper, the Albion pair enjoyed fantastic networking opportunities at the annual gathering.

On March 25–27, Dr. Seolah Kim, assistant professor of economics and management, and Aminaa Injinash, ’24, attended the Midwest Economics Association’s Annual Meeting in Minneapolis for the undergraduate paper competition. This was the first time that an Albion student presented a paper as a part of this competition since the best undergraduate paper award was created.

To compete for this award, Dr. Kim and Injinash needed to submit a research proposal in December. Once their proposal was accepted, they then had an opportunity to present their research paper at the conference. Students with a similar topic were assigned in the same session. Each student gave a 20-minute presentation, which was followed by a faculty discussant offering comments and suggestions for future research.

Injinash presented a paper titled, “Impact of the ATM Network on Small Businesses in a Cashless Economy.” This paper was written from Injinash’s summer 2021 FURSCA project on analyzing the impact of accessibility to cash on a small business owner’s income.

“It was such an eye-opening experience,” says Injinash. “It was a great start for finding the path, which excites me the most. I will continue doing my research and share this conference experience with many other students interested in this field.”

Dr. Kim attended this conference as a presenter of her own work as well as an advisor for Injinash’s paper. “I wanted Aminaa to attend this conference because this is a great opportunity to see what an academic conference looks like and learn many different topics all at once,” says Dr. Kim. “This is one of the largest economics conferences held annually. There is also an undergraduate social where you can meet students from different universities who have the same interest as you. If you are considering pursuing a graduate degree, this is the perfect place to be.”

“I am very grateful that I had a chance to get exposed to the experience of many different research topics in economics,” says Injinash. “During the undergraduate social at the MEA conference, I had valuable networking with many students from various colleges. We discussed each other’s research and career paths in economics. All of the undergraduate students, except me, were seniors and I could get advice on a lot of things from them. Who knows if one of them will be my employer or mentor in the future?”

In addition to interactions with other undergraduate students, Injinash also found an interesting paper that she could relate to personally. “One session included research done by a Carleton College student about microloans in Mongolia. Since Mongolia is my home country, it was so exciting to hear why she chose the topic, what obstacles she had, and how she solved them,” Injinash says. “I could understand that the economics field is not only about graphs or numbers, but it is also inclusive and diverse, which can easily extend to a research topic in Mongolia.”