statslurker

Haha thanks Zeno, I am not planning on anything contentious though. I guess I will go for cryptography then, I had one proof-based course (introduction), and will be taking 4-6 next year, and possibly at least two my senior year, so I should be ok in those terms, but you are right, this course will give me some technical practice. I actually haven't taken any stats, was just self-studying 215 for the sake of getting Econometrics out of the way next term (will take a legitimate 265-275 sequence next year).

Seacucumber -- thanks! OneMoreEcon -- I don't mind being obvious (got nothing to hide haha, is there anything I should be careful of?) I would have included the courses above into the consideration, but as I mentioned, I really can take only cryptography or this elective. 315 and Abstract conflicts with econometrics (really need to take it this year, or next year will be a crazy mess), while 341 has ODEs as a pre-req (it's essentially PDEs), and I will be taking ODEs next year. So it boils down to Cryptography/Coding theory and the econ course...

Hi, I have a more or less established schedule for next trimester, but I am unsure about my third class. I could either take an extra economics elective (would not even count towards my major requirements since I will be done with those even without this class), or a math course (which I don't really need for my major either, since I will have enough of other stuff to compensate). The math course is Coding Theory and Crpyptography, here's the description: The theory of codes including linear codes, error-correcting codes and Huffman codes. Some treatment of Shannon theory. Elementary treatment of cipher theory including stream ciphers, public-key ciphers and quantum cryptography. It has Lin Al as pre-req, and seems to be an application of Lin Al through and through. As far as I can tell, this will not help me much with econ (or will it? I would prefer to take something else like RA etc. but nothing offered at the moment), so should I just stick to an econ elective (Water and Western Economic Development)? Thanks!

Hey everyone, I was wondering if you knew of any econ research opportunities that are open to international students who are performing their undergrad studies in the U.S. It's hard to find "REU"s for econ in first place, let alone those that are open to international students (issues with NSF funding), so it looks like if there are no econ professors doing research at your own institution at the moment (my situation), you are frozen out. Is there anything that you would recommend that comes to mind? I have been searching for a while now, but barely found anything.

Here's the textbook we use: FOURIER SERIES+BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEMS Author: BROWN ISBN: 9780073051932 Edition/Copyright: 7TH 08 Published Date: 2008 Publisher: MCG Anyone heard of it? I think at our college they teach to solve ODEs/PDEs but I am not sure. It's nice to hear that PDEs have more of a signal value than 'this is required' value. I probably won't be doing finance, so I think I will stick to ODEs (at least that, just in case) and Topology should be the choices! Thanks a lot for your help everyone. :)

I was under impression that PDEs are something that you use in grad school, while Topology is just a signal of abstract math ability, was I wrong? I would rather do T as I prefer abstract math, but I thought ODE/PDE are something directly applied in the Ph.D program...

Hey everyone, I keep seeing the lists of math classes for prospective econ PhD students, and I was wondering what's your take on partial differential equations. I am asking because my choice is to have a) winter term consisting of Real Analysis I, Ordinary Differential equations, Statistical Inference and spring term of Partial Differential equations, Set Theory, and Intermediate Macro, or b) winter term of Statistical Inference, Real Analysis I, Topology, and spring term of Set theory, Intermediate Macro, and Ordinary differential equations. In other words, are ODEs sufficient for econ phd, or are PDEs needed too? If so, which is more preferred, PDE or Topology? I might get a chance to take one of the classes I will be missing out my senior year, but I am not sure if the adm. committees will get to see it (depending on whether I apply during my senior year or after graduation). Thanks.

Speaking of Minneapolis -- I am from the same neighborhood (at the moment) -- Carleton represent. :) Thanks for all your helpful advices! I will probably dedicate the remaining week of break to glancing over probability stuff, learning to operate S+/SPSS, and doing lots of regression problems.

Thanks a lot SlowLearner! It's funny that my school does not even require Lin Al as a pre-req for metrics, but it has definitely been my favorite math course so far, and I would really like to apply it in the class. I also find the lin al approach more comfortable in computing the least-squares solutions, but the pure stats way offers a new perspective on it. Thanks again, I will go through probability pretty fast and then focus on regressions and like.

Just took lin al this past term, glad we did some least squares there, too! Thanks for your advice; I will focus on regressions and usage of data from observations/controlled studies. So these are the main topics, right? I am asking because I have covered approximately half of the class already, and everything you mentioned was in this first half -- now I am doing probabilities, and not sure what comes after that. Please let me know if there is anything else I need to put an emphasis on, thanks. :)

Hi, I am currently a sophomore hoping to pursue a Ph.D in econ. I am planning on taking Econometrics next term, and I have been self-studying stats for a week so far, and have another week to go. While the material is not particularly hard, I was wondering what should I focus on, to make sure that I am well-prepared for Econometrics specifically (I will be taking a full stats sequence next year, so I will learn everything appropriately later; I am self-studying it only for metrics right now because I need to finish this class before my junior year due to scheduling issues). I imagine topics such as probability are less relevant, while linear regressions are more, but I could be completely wrong. Thank you very much for your advice!