Princ of Quant Pol Research 1 · Political Science
Learned a lot about regression and its role within social science. Also learned introductory and basic R skills (sort of...).
Got a very good grounding in graduate level statistics as a beginner
Short readings that are rather difficult but you can skim them if you attend class regularly and take good notes (he'll highlight important sections). The mid-term and paper are optional if you want the final to count for 100%. Everything is straight-forward, without tricks and very manageable. I get the feeling Amdur genuinely wants his students to both learn and do well.
there were 7 problem sets, which had both textbook questions and R lab sections. Lab sections were always easy -- the TA's give you a pretty detailed start to finish example that you copy for different keywords. the textbook cost 40$ to rent for the semester from Pearson, but you have to get it or else you can't access the textbook questions. one midterm, pretty easy if you paid attention during class, and the grading was super generous. One final -- I haven't taken it yet, but i'm not too worried. If you actually do all the assigned readings, which you don't need, it's maybe 8 hours a week, but if you just do the problem sets, it's probably closer to 4 hours.
Workload is fairly light. Part I of Theory of Justice, plus other excerpts in Parts II and III. Maybe one or two other books, e.g., Onora O'Neill's book and Nozick ASU. There is no set syllabus, as Pogge asks the students what they would like to do as the term progresses. MidTerm/Final+2Papers
two quizzes, two papers, good amount of reading
How to code in R regarding data processing, visualization, looping and regression analysis. Foundational assumptions, objectives and challenges of quantiative research.
- Theory Construction, Statistical Inference, Regression (Bivariate and then Multivariate)
Anyone who teaches a course called "Human Rights and Social Justice" has to be a nice guy and the same holds true with Prof. Amdur. He's a great teacher who is very approachable and concerned about his students. The readings are a little dry but Amdur's methodological approach and willingness to repeat explanations ultimately made the texts easily digestible. In fact, I really looked forward to going to class because of AmdurÂ’s ingenious capability to elucidate esoteric theory. I am so happy I took this course, which really broadened by mind, and had Amdur as my professor. True, he's not particularly charismatic but he is incredibly organized and deeply respects his students. I unequivocally recommend this course to anyone even remotely interested in social justice theory.
I enrolled in this class with Calc III, but no stat background and no programming background at all, but everything you need to know is explained in depth -- almost too much. Super easy class if you pay attention or if you vaguely understand how math works. Like, so easy we spent a full week on coin flip probability, easy. In terms of the prof Abdullah is one of the kindest, most intelligent I've had so far. Genuinely cares about his students and pushed problem set deadlines back several times when people were struggling. He does a recap of each lesson at the start of the next, so it's no big deal if you miss one or two, especially since we covered the same info several times over. Overall, it's a great intro to political research, takes you step by step from the very beginning of stat to regression models, with a great prof.