School's Out!

Just a couple weeks ago I finished my first year as a PhD student at the University of Maryland! This semester I took three courses: Qualitative Methods, Quantitative Methods, and an independent study on Normative Analysis. Everything went well, and all of the courses were fairly interesting. I really enjoyed the quantitative methods course, where each lecture we would learn a quantitative method (agent based modeling, advanced econometrics, etc.) and hear about on-going research using that method. Qualitative methods I generally enjoyed, though lecture could be more hit or miss, and with three hours of lecture on Friday evening, it was hard to be fully engaged. The Normative Analysis course was great - it was designed to help us discuss and go over normative readings, and was really helpful. In mid-May, I turned in final papers for the Qual and Quant classes, which was the very last thing I needed to do for the semester. So that's it for this school year!