EconForeThought

Who's going to Berkeley ARE this year? Welcome!

Crazy good deal on a Refurb Dell XPS Go here and click on check prices. Click on the $549 option which is a Dell XPS loaded with Processor: Intel Core i5-2300 processor (6MB Cache, 2.8GHz) Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium XPS 8300 1 TB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM) 6 GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz, (2X2G/2X1G) 16X DVD +/- RW Drive $549 is a good price, but enter the code 309R05JS4FVV3Z to get $100 off and make it $449!!!

Getting back to the original parameters of the problem, the OP asked for a quality laptop. Maybe s/he does not have a desk to plunk a PC on, or maybe s/he prefers the "carry-it-all-with-you" aspect of having a portable PC (though Dropbox and probably iCloud save the day on this). We could get into it all day about AMD v Intel, but I think the latter is beginning to run away with it in the CPU department, though I am glad AMD is around to keep them honest. Also, there was a deal a few months ago for the older generation i7s for $180. Here is a benchmark rundown: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html#

Yep. But be warned: the STATA interface in Mac is funky in my opinion. It puts the command prompt, output window, do file window all separate so sometimes it is hard to find what you are looking for. I prefer the windows UI for STATA.

Well this is my personal #1

#1 law of slickdeals: Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Right now I have a 3 year old macbook and a 6 month old lenovo thinkpad edge. Anyways, if you think a windows PC is the way to go, I would get a toshiba satellite or a lenovo thinkpad. These are fairly heavy (~5lb). If you get a higher end model, it will last you four years. There's a back to school promo where if you spend >=699 on a laptop, you get a free xbox 360, which you can sell on ebay if you want. Buy a PC and Get a Free Xbox 360 If you want a mac, I think you cannot go wrong with the Macbook pro. If you hold off until september/october, they are going to release a sandybridge i5 macbook air, which will be an ultraportable (~2.5lb) heavyweight (SSD, newest gen, low wattage processor). If you don't want to wait, you can get $100 at the app store in addition to student savings on the air. Buy a mac, get $100 at app store SLICKDEALS (http://slickdeals.net/deals/) is always a good place to find tech deals.

Bruce Hansen's Econometrics is an amazing book for first year PhD metrics.

But Berkeley IS on the semester system; they are the only UC that is.

Well, it's not what got me interested at first, but it really has driven my interest lately: "resolving" Solow's sustainability-poverty paradox From Sustainability: an Economist's Perspective

Some schools have SHAZAM servers you can use. We have: RUNSHAZAM HOME PAGE

Interesting. UC Davis Econ Dept has a policy of just above C+ averages in their core courses, B- in their other upper division courses: "To ensure fairness and consistency in grading, the Department expects that the GPA in Economics 1A, 1B, 100, 101, and 102 will average 2.4. For example, a distribution with 20% A's, 30% B's, 30% C's, 10% D's, and 10% F's could be consistent with an overall GPA of 2.4. In more advanced courses the GPA is typically somewhat higher (2.7)." Department of Economics In my program, pretty much every class was curved to make B- the average.

Davis summer isn't a picnic either, but East Coast humidity is probably worse.:yuck:

^Good choice. I'll be an hour away :D Any lurkers out there going to UCB, give me a shout!

UC Berkeley ARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!