If you are a student in SPA, one of the two important classes you would end up taking early in the program are 501 and 502. The research methods classes. 501 is the one which teaches you what is a research paper, what different approaches to research are, how to ask a question for research and how to write a paper. Well to tell the truth, even with a degree in Economics, I did not know anything about writing research paper. After taking 501, no when I think about horrible papers I wrote before, I feel like going back to time and redoing all the work. Now at least I know how to approach a problem. Of course as I will keep on working, my writing will be improved.
502 is the next in sequence which we can call Regression Analysis or if Introductory econometrics per se. In the first stage, we learn how to approach a problem and in the second stage we learn how to actually quantify what is measured.
Both the classes are rigorous and require lot of hard work. But I must say that those two are among the best classes I ever took. No matter what grade I got, I learnt so much that I now feel confident that I can write a small decent paper. Of course there are tons of more things and techniques to learn. But I enjoyed every single moment of my class. With excellent faculty members every single class came with new ideas, techniques and new questions. I read research papers which were written the way we were expected to write.
502 is the next in sequence which we can call Regression Analysis or if Introductory econometrics per se. In the first stage, we learn how to approach a problem and in the second stage we learn how to actually quantify what is measured.
Both the classes are rigorous and require lot of hard work. But I must say that those two are among the best classes I ever took. No matter what grade I got, I learnt so much that I now feel confident that I can write a small decent paper. Of course there are tons of more things and techniques to learn. But I enjoyed every single moment of my class. With excellent faculty members every single class came with new ideas, techniques and new questions. I read research papers which were written the way we were expected to write.
I know many of us have this inherent fear of “anything that looks like mathematics”. But trust me in both of these classes mathematics and statistics comes along as something that can be totally entertaining.
Field of social science is not easy to quantify. There is no way we can put value to human life and any aspect of it. But methods class gives a direction that helps to understand the importance of quantifying these “un-quantifiable” entities and how we can utilize this knowledge to attempt to solve different social issues.
I really hope everyone enjoys these classes and finds how analysis changes the approach towards solutions.
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