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preparation for the fall


Wahasky

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I know the standard advice is "enjoy your last summer before grad school" but I'm definitely going to be reviewing before classes start since I've been out of undergrad for two years and my school's economics major wasn't very rigorous.

 

I've been working through a calculus book (Kline) to sharpen up basic skills, and was planning to do the same for linear algebra. I have Simon and Blume "Mathematics for Economists" that I bought at the recommendation of a professor and want to work through as well. Is this a good plan? Anyone have other recommendations?

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Enjoy the summer is actually pretty good advice.

 

But a little brushing up on math is not a bad idea. You might see if there is a math camp syllabus. You may find the Arizona math camp, Math Camp 2020, useful.

 

It is probably not worth your time learning Stata, R, or Python now, although it is likely it will be later. If you have never used LaTeX, you may want to get an introduction to that.

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You may also want to review a mathematical probability & statistics textbook, which will help with metrics.

 

Simon & Blume is a good resource as well. Some of the topics in that book are more geared toward what you'll actually see in your graduate-level courses (e.g. optimization, quadratic forms, basic linear algebra).

Edited by coloradoecon
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If you have no exposure to LaTeX, try LyX out. It's a gentle introduction to the LaTeX language and is very point-and-click like Microsoft Word. Plus, it also shows you what the end-result is like without having to compile the document and doesn't require you to remember a bunch of commands and which brackets go where like in Overleaf.

 

It only took me about 2-3 weeks to get into it, and I've never opened a Word Document since.

 

In case people are unaware, for some courses (macro, in my case), the professors expect the problem set submissions to be typed out in LaTeX, so it's a lot less stressful to pick it up now when you have free time, rather than trying to pick it up in between problem sets during the semester.

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I believe that problem sets in econometrics will require us to use Stata/Matlab though (only took the PhD micro sequence so not very sure- MA metrics does require plenty of coding).

 

I’ve been using R in mine. Also, on a side note, some programs start metrics with measure theoretic probability, so I’ll be reviewing my analysis this summer.

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I agree with the advice that you'll likely use many of these software packages in your work and so good to learn them. But in terms of preparing specifically for the first year, these are good questions to ask your program director and some of the current students. We send our incoming students some suggestions for how to prepare for the first year, but I'm sure some programs don't. In any case, it is fairly straightforward for them to tell you that, for example, it is incredibly helpful to know Stata, or Latex, or whatever, for first year coursework.

 

Enjoy the summer, though, is definitely the best advice. Everything else is second order.

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Please, please please, take some time off this summer to relax. You're about to start a 6 year stint of your life where you will always, always feel like there is something you "could" or "should" be doing: studying for quals, working on research, applying to jobs. Reward yourself for the huge accomplishment of getting into a PhD program with some well-earned downtime!

 

Maybe, maybe, review some math like in the 2 weeks before math camp, but don't spend your summer self-studying stuff that you might not even use in the first year or might go over during math camp anyway. In my personal opinion it is very hard to teach yourself a programming language from scratch on your own, you'll likely have better success debugging and figuring things out with peers with the defined goal of problem set... and programming in Matlab is unlikely to be the hardest part of the first year.

 

Actually, if I could recommend something... read! Read interesting journal articles, read books by sociologists and historians, read the Economist and the New Yorker, read whatever you find compelling! What makes a good economist is not proving fixed-point theorems, but rather having an interesting question to ask about the way the world works that economic tools can answer. Exposure to diverse perspectives is the key to coming up with original research ideas.

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There's some really good advice here, thanks all -- I actually had never even heard of LaTeX before so that was a good tip. My goal is to make sure my basic skills in calculus, linear algebra, and stats are sharp (shouldn't take too much work), then do extra review in Simon and Blume. I would prefer to take bookworm510 and others' advice to just relax, but I think my anxiety about starting off behind my peers outweighs my desire to relax.

 

I have actually never used Stata (my school and current job don't have licenses) but I'm very comfortable in R (and know a little Python). I've generally heard Stata is much more user-friendly and intuitive than R, am I right to assume my programming skills in R will let me pick up Stata pretty quickly?

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It'd be great to pick up LaTeX now since some courses (macro, especially) require problem sets to be submitted in LaTeX, so it's better to fiddle around with it and get to know the basics now, while you're still relatively free, than trying to squeeze in time during the semester to get used to LaTeX.

 

Yes, if you're familiar with any programming language, Stata shouldn't be too difficult to pick up. You're more likely to use Python/R/Matlab in the first year than Stata.

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Re Stata: it's very different from R/Python/etc but super intuitive. I would play around with it - there's a pre-doc data task available at predoc.org that would be a good introduction. But wouldn't spend more than an hour or two using Stata.

 

Definitely want to reinforce the idea of using Lyx, it's a very very easy implementation of LaTeX and since I started using it I haven't looked back.

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