Zeno's Paradox
December 03, 2003 - Choices

I'm interested in further beefing up my political science background. Which of the two courses should I consider for the upcoming quarter: "Formal Political Economy" or "Mathematics for Political Science". Descriptions below.

Formal Political Economy:

"This course is an introduction to applications of formal models in comparative politics and political economy. The first part of the class will be devoted to covering the core topics of electoral rules and parliamentary institutions. In the second part, we examine models of national differences in redistribution, welfare spending and public good provision. Each class will typically focus on one or two central articles, with other articles suggested for further reading."

Mathematics for Political Science:

"An introduction to some basic tools for statistical methods and formal theory. The course covers topics in linear algebra, elementary calculus and optimization theory." Readings: A. Chiang "Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics", R. Sundaram "A First Course in Optimization".

Posted by br284 at 02:36 PM

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the first one sounds more useful for your goals. the second one's just a math class geared towards poli-sci people, but not actually about poli-sci. though if you want to be a poli-sci researcher (or economist for that matter) you will eventually have to beef up your math skills (just ask steve). frankly, though, if you're looking to beef up your poli-sci background with courses like these, you may as well just take econ straight out or game theory or something. i'm not sure if your goals are to learn poli-sci or methods of studying poli-sci though. those are really very different i think, and the classes you're suggesting seem to suggest the latter of the two. and big yawners at that :-)

Posted by ... on December 3, 2003 08:31 PM
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