Computational MAth Camp | Materials from 2019

Course Design

This is a 15-hour bootcamp course, designed to introduce students to R as they enter graduate study in applied economics. Course goals are:

ACQUAINT students with the R Studio interface.
INTRODUCE students to basic commands in R, including creating and deleting variables, subsetting data, and generating estimates econometric models.
DISCUSS data types and features for both analyzing secondary data and designing instruments for primary data collection.
ENCOURAGE students to learn more about one another as they enter graduate school as a cohort.

Key features of this course are:

DAILY SURVEYS designed and completed by students. The last 25 minutes of each day are dedicated to discussions of survey design. The final product is a short survey that students design together and complete before they leave for the day. Surveys are focused on students in the course and serve as springboards not only for data analysis but also for community building among new students. Sample surveys are provided below.
PROGRAMMING TASKS are short tasks that students complete independently or in pairs. These serve to introduce them to new commands and functions in R.
REVIEW TASKS are short tasks that students complete independently. They are used to refresh students about the material they learned in previous class sessions.
TROUBLE-SHOOTING TASKS are short tasks where students are given code that is not working and asked to edit it using the skills they’ve learned.

Sample materials are grouped by day and provided below.