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Hello, I am a undergraduate student studying economics in the hopes of one day pursuing a PHD. I have downloaded STATA and am faced with the task of self study. Would anyone have tips or advice on how to go about learning this software package in a way that is geared towards economics. I figure any RA position would want you to prove your proficiency with the software. I just wonder how you would show that. At my university, I have found some previous class assignments from an econometrics class that require the use of STATA. I am thinking it may be a good idea to mess around with those assignments and see what I can do with them. Maybe I could even use the assignments as a badge of proof, a way to show proficiency in STATA. If anyone has advice for me, I would be happy to hear it. Thank you.

My undergrad is in history, so as far as admissions committees go, I have no undergrad. I have, however, an MPP from UT Austin with a graduate minor in stats. (Not too impressive, I know.) So my forte is my research experience using SAS and Stata. Allow me to explain in more detail: At UT Austin, I picked up Stata and SAS programming as part of my MPP. I really liked econ, especially econometrics. I RA'd for an economist my last year at UT. After graduation, I took a programmer job with Mathematica Policy Research and have now been working for for them as a senior Stata/SAS programmer for the last 1.5 years. I am the author of 6 Stata commands (ado files) and have written dozens of do files for data management and data analysis (fitting all kinds of models from OLS and FE to PSM and regression discontinuity). Bottom line, I am very comfortable with SAS and Stata and have over two years of relevant economic research experience. I know that to make the application stronger I have to put more math in my transcripts. So, I took several math courses from a local community college. Here is a breakdown of my courses: Math GPA 3.5 (from the courses I have taken) Calc I, Calc II, Multivariable, Linear Algebra, (Real Analysis this summer), (Differential Eqs this fall--possibly) Stats GPA 3.9 Stat Methods I, Stat Methods II, Discrete Multivariate Models, Program Evaluation, Advanced Research Methods Econ GPA 3.75 Economics 101, Microeconomics, International Trade and Finance, Applied Econometrics I, Applied Econometrics What schools would be realistic for me to be admitted? (top 15? top 25? top 35?) What's the value added of my research experience given my background? What could I do this year (besides taking Real Analysis) to make my application stronger? Thanks