Math Workshop for Political Science (Fall 2018)

The syllabus is available here.

Course Description: The purpose of this workshop is to provide incoming first year Ph.D. students with some fundamental skills in various mathematical techniques that are used in political science, regardless of sub-specialty, and generally to prepare students for the first-year methods sequence. The workshop is also open to continuing students who feel that they would gain from participating in the course. This year the course will begin on Monday August 6th and run every weekday until Friday August 17th. Class sessions are tentatively scheduled to run from 09:00 -12:30 with approximately a 20--30 minute break in between two 1.5 hour sessions. In addition, an optional introductory sequence to R computing is provided. 

This workshop has a "semi-flipped" format, which means that I expect you to watch videos and do some reading ahead of each class. Each day I lecture on topics and sub-topics that I think need extra attention. Group work and other activities follow the lectures.

Below is the schedule and the appropriate videos to watch before each session. These videos are meant to supplement textbook reading, and spur class discussion. All of the videos are freely available from Khan Academy and YouTube (isn't it great that one's entire math education can be found for free online?!). I have included the most essential videos for each topic; however, going through additional ones, particularly for advanced topics, is suggested. Also, keep in mind that videos get taken down all the time for various reasons. If one is not available, please let me know, and do your best to find a replacement.