Seven Questions with... Phin Godfrey

UCL student Phin - This week, UCL student Phin - who is currently working as an economist at the Department for Transport - chats to us about living in Hong Kong, his favorite bookstores, and getting involved in the Laidlaw Research and Leadership Programme at UCL. What are you studying, why are you interested in this subject and what do you plan to do in the future?. I study Economics with a Placement Year, and am currently on my placement working as an economist at the Department for Transport. I got into economics because of how much of the world seems to be driven by economic forces, and how many different niches and interdisciplinary links there are to study. A good, critical understanding of the different perspectives in the discipline gives you a well-equipped toolbox to understand problems and try to solve them. In my opinion, the most important of these problems is climate change - so I'd like to apply my economics knowledge in the future to trying to solve it, whether through helping design policy to support green innovation, or pushing people and businesses to act more sustainably. However, I'm also very interested in many economic issues like how to reform housing and financial systems to work better for society, or how businesses can be structured in the interests of all their stakeholders.