Welcome to the Economics REFS website!

EconREFS (Resources for Easing Friction and Stress) are graduate students trained and certified in conflict management. We provide peer coaching for stress and conflict in a neutral and confidential setting, serve as a sounding board for student concerns, and help students navigate the other resources available to them at MIT. Our role is to listen to you and help facilitate productive discussion about your concerns and possible strategies to address them.

We can help navigate issues including but not restricted to:

• Advisor-advisee relationships
• Conflict with roommates, other students, and friends
• Time management
• Stress about classes or exams

We also engage the department in other ways to ease stress: organizing events to discuss some of the major difficulties that graduate students face and introducing students to the resources available to handle these issues.

To set up a one-on-one counseling meeting with one of our REFS, email econrefs@mit.edu or refer to the People page to contact one of us directly.