Ordinary Squares: Thoughts after a Year of Stats Classes

I have a confession to make. As an undergrad, I failed statistics. So I guess I had something to prove by taking the entire course of quantitative methods at IR/PS. By the end of the third quarter, in the middle of QM3, deep in panel data and time series analysis, I came to the realization that we were at the edge of the epistemic enterprise. The view was expansive--and completely terrifying.

Luckily, Professor C McI, development econ guru and stats wizard, was there to provide reassurance and entertaining quotes, "At the end of the day, it's easier to dress up a pig, because we know the pig. The pig is OLS (Ordinary Least Squares)."



Craig is a rebel econometrician. He professes that the data should speak for themselves, regardless of some traditional theoretical underpinnings. "I'd probably get dragged through the streets by some of the professors in the political science department for saying this, but..." was the way he prefaced half of what we learned. Yet PoliSci PhD students flock to this class because it is about results, not just long procedures. (Not to say the procedures aren't long and tedious).

When some of us started to gripe that our data collection and analysis of some policy problem was taking too long and ruining our lives, (I spent 36 probably hours collecting the data alone) he said, "Well, if you wanted to save time, then you probably shouldn't be in this class."

Describing one encounter and difference of opinion with our QM2 professor, he said, "We both paled beneath our tans each others lack of rigor."

Sometimes the data looked "weird enough" to take a closer look at. "Like someone missing their six front teeth."

We knew what we shouldn't run regressions on. "Testing discrimination statistically is just a veil of tears." And we knew that the compass clues of old cross-panel (single time period) regressions were out the window. "Looking at R Squared to ascribe significance and determine causality is like holding hands with the devil."

Maybe I'm over ascribing causality here, but I don't think most of us would have lasted two days without our professor making mind-boggling concepts as easy as taking a random walk.

On the last day, knowing we were left with only our ox-stunning econometrics text, an inch of notes, and a dozen STATA .do files, he said, "We end the way we have lived. In a kind of headlong rush."

Remember me?

Of course, I have most likely been forgotten since I have not posted since the start of the school year. So I will have to sum everything up. What a busy year! I would recommend not working at all during the first quarter or so. No joke. This program is intense and time management is probably one of the most critical elements for survival. I have learned so much about such a wide variety of subjects, and the year was full of ups and downs. Personally, I have really enjoyed the group projects, but wow, I'm learning to get by on very little sleep.

 

I am happy to report that I am also awaiting the completion of my background check for my summer internship at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). I am placed in a regional office in my home state of Texas!  I am very excited about the opportunity to explore the public sector given that my background has been predominantly in the private sector.  I am also pleased that I made some great contacts within the public sector during my internship search.

 

On a completely different topic, I joined my fine IR/PS classmates on the LASO wine tour in Mexico last Sunday.  I speak no Spanish and I study mostly Japan/Asia. This was a great chance to see Mexico and interact with students studying Latin America. The Spanish professor, Victor is great!  At the first winery, we were able to learn a little about the wine-making process (see the equipment, basement for barrel storage, etc...). I also got some good strawberry marmalade. The second winery was award-winning and very generous with the wine samplings. The last one was interesting because I never tasted from a barrel before, and I finally found a sweeter white wine. The sunset over the Pacific Ocean was amazing!

 

Last month, I volunteered at the California State Democratic Party Convention and watched Hillary Clinton deliver a speech live. In about 10 days, I will be watching Al Gore give his famous lecture on global warming. Life inside and outside the classroom is pretty exciting here in San Diego.  Back to work though...only weeks to go!

Back to the World of the Blogging, or, 1/4 through my 2 Years at IR/PS

Like most of my classmates, I took five classes (18 credits) last quarter. I said to myself, never again. Then I signed up for five classes (now 20 credits) this quarter. Forgive me for not giving a running commentary. IR/PS has been harder on my blogging than I thought.

Tonight I went out to see my first movie since I started here. With the three-day weekend and some inspiration, I decided I can also update you on things in IR/PS land.

Chinese Language Film Society

I don't want you to think we haven't been watching movies. While my classmates and I pay more attention to politics, econ, and numbers than I ever thought possible, lots of student groups show movies on campus.

My first extra-curricular goal at IR/PS was to start a Chinese movie club. So, with the help of a Propaganda Czar (Aaron Jacobson), Finance Minister (Brett Collins), Minister of Labor (Matt Eblin), webmaster (Ari, who seems only to be mastering this blog), and a few other principals, the Chinese Language Film Society was born.

We founded this club because our IR/PS librarian Jim Cheng has tirelessly created North America's largest underground film collection. It's been fun to meet the people on campus who dig Chinese cinema. We've been showing mostly commercial titles. We'll get into more of the banned titles in the coming months. Jim just gave me his unpublished notes on the 500 most recent films. Fun, fun.

We, the brave, the mighty...The Chinese Language Film Society at UCSD

Our big event last quarter was in solidarity with World AIDS Day on campus. We screened "To Live is Better than to Die," a documentary on villagers in Henan living with HIV/AIDS. Activist Chung To spoke to us from Shanghai via webcam about HIV issues in China. This was an exhilarating experience. Using webcams is a model we'll put to use more in the coming months. It's cheaper than flying people in, and despite the speaker on the other end being projected the size of King Kong, it's still an intimate format.

An Excursion to Shanghai

My advisor Susan Shirk said I was crazy to take a week off in the middle of my first quarter to travel to Shanghai. All of my professors said it was a great opportunity. I got to meet and stay with one of my childhood heroes, Dr. Jane Goodall.

To prepare for my journey, I had to get ahead in all of my classes. I studied econ the flight over. Then I took my first econ midterm via webcam (TA watching) from my old office Jane Goodall Institute office in Shanghai, where I interned over the summer. It went well.

In addition to representing IR/PS at a graduate recruitment fair there, I did a few other things. I also got to hang out with the good doctor.

Because I interned at Roots & Shoots Shanghai, the organization she founded, I got VIP treatment. I had four days to ride around with her, hear her speak three times a day, visit an organic rice farm, translate for her at a wetlands preserve, and play my Chinese zither (guqin). Dr. Jane is more amazing in person than I ever imagined. She's in her seventies and she travels over 320 days a year promoting causes for people, animals, and the environment. Not the most amazing is that she never gets rained on. I was glad to be with the Dr. Jane group when we went to the rice farm. The other half of the nation-wide Roots & Shoots Youth Summit attendees complained of rain that day. I stayed dry.

Here's a video of me playing "Yang Guan San Die" at the Chongming Island Youth Summit. Unfortunately, the camera man's mobile phone went off halfway through. (And the audio and video aren't synced).



Back at school, my assignment backlog hit me hard, but I recovered. The Quantitative Methods final was the worst test experience in my life, not because I did especially poorly (Bs get degrees) but because the professor is a math genius who writes the test like we're all math geniuses. We're thankful for the curve.

Break Time

In some ways, I wish I hadn't booked so many tickets so far in advance. In other ways, I was grateful to get on the road again. I never stayed in one place for more than a couple days. I got to see so many people I hadn't been able to talk to over the quarter. I even made some new friends...like electronic musicians at Columbia who wanted to record my guqin for possible use on a track or two. I recorded in the building where they developed the atom bomb and Albert Einstein had an office. Just one of the many joys of taking advantage of opportunities. I'm even tempted to call it what the Chinese call it: yuanfen, or predestined affinity.

I got back to San Diego feeling like I hadn't really rested. But seeing old friends is nice.

This Quarter

...is going well. I can't say I've gotten any better at finding time for the piles on my desk or just hang out. I came here to work and learn as much as I can, and that's what I'm doing. The calibre of people here is amazing. And like Fred said, the program is hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done, and I think the experience is rewarding. I came to IR/PS with the expectation that I would learn the tools to deepen my impact in the world. I feel like that's exactly what I'm doing . I'm changing the way I think, the way I prioritize, and the types of people I meet. These are all rewarding and well worth the sacrifices.

Fred's Fifth; Trying a Comeback

I'll let you guys in on a little secret, maybe something that isn't obvious from what you might read on this blog or any other blog by IR/PS students. I know what I'm about to tell you is something many IR/PSers are trying to keep quiet ~ maybe because of personal pride or maybe they're inclined to think otherwise but here's the secret anyways:

IR/PS is hard.

I don't think there is any one variable that alone can explain this for the whole of the IR/PS student population (that'd be thesis material right there) but there you go. Sooner or later I know each one of us is going to realize it.

Maybe it's the string of number-crunching QM courses or the unnerving feeling you're going to be cold-called next in PMP. Maybe it's the sudden rapid realization that there are only 24 hours in a day which are all overstuffed with paper-writing, readings, group studies, language practice, email-checking, and oh yeah those other things like sleeping and eating. In my case it was a combination of all of the above: a quarter-long experiment in balancing difficult classes and acclimating myself to grad school life.

I suppose some people can get through the program on sheer genius and learning aptitude; their minds and experiences so in tuned with the rhythm of econometrics and language acquisition that the challenge will be staying awake in Accounting or churning through chapters of politics blah blah blah trying to remember anything cold-call worthy. Others might get through the curriculum simply through pinpointed, focused effort and willpower; they have so deep a desire, such determination and drive to succeed that they overcome any academic weakness.

Unfortunately I've got neither of these gifts in such a concentration that success is guaranteed (if I did, I'd share). I just might have enough of each though to make it here at UCSD, to come away from last quarter and this one and all the future ones with everything I can get out of it ~ enough smarts and enough drive to get me the degree that I and 130 or so of my peers know we're capable of. Until 2008 though...

IR/PS is hard.

Our Cloistered Existences

It's been forever since I posted. Oh, wait, only a few weeks. My how we've crammed a lot of activities into just a short time.

Last time your eyes met my words, I had just finished uploading grainy videos from prep. Now classes have been underway for three weeks. Everybody's talking about time management and midterms. There's a sense of healthy competition, as if everyone is in the first leg of a marathon and we're making sure our pacing is right. Most of us haven't had enough assignments to know exactly where we stand.

Career Management Orientation and other Metta-dologies

After more than a week of career management orientation before classes started, I think we all had a better overview of all the non-academic aspects of our program. IR/PS really devotes a lot of resources to helping us get where we want to go.

To cap the week, we had Marshall Goldsmith--the world-renowned career coach, meditator, and green Polo shirt aficionado--visited and give us some of his advice. He asked if there were any other Buddhists in the room. I almost raised my hand, but decided not to, since I don't define my meditation practice as Buddhist. But when I went up to him afterward, I asked him about how much time he devoted to meditation. Like anyone used to the spotlight, he answered a completely different question and I went away feeling satisfied.

He said he follows a very simple teaching from a Vietnamese Buddhist master: Heaven and hell are not places far away, but states of existence in the here and now. This is purgatory and this is nirvana. Then he cackled in his trademark way.

As I left Robinson Hall to grab dinner, the sun setting over the ocean, I thought how wonderful it is that someone of his spiritual caliber is on personal terms with so many of the world's top managers, helping them change behaviors that may be detrimental not only to their organizations, but to all other sentient beings.

Schooling is Primary

As a history and American Culture major who slacked off in high school and wanted to hide in a corner throughout middle school, I haven't enjoyed school this much since my elementary years. Some of my classmates think the QM and Econ courses are too easy. Others break down at too much math. I just keep throwing myself into it things. The coursework is not easy, but it's also not impossible. I had to stare at my econ and give it a stern tongue lashing before I drilled some of the basic concepts into my mind, but now the subject and I are back on speaking terms. We may even become good friends by the end of my time here.

I feel like I'm getting what I came here for because I'm learning standard sets of ideas and tools that give me insight and working knowledge of the dominant systems of organization throughout the world. I don't want that power for my own gain, but to turn it back to help people who don't have the same opportunities as I do. Perhaps I spend too much time studying, but I think my classmates feel much the same way. I can imagine if this were an MBA program that I might be continually repulsed by my classmate's avarice. I feel like my IR/PS classmates generally have healthy ambition, but not greed.

I like the structure of the courses here, but wish I had more time to question what I am learning. As an undergraduate student of cultural history, interpretation was always so wide open I hardly knew where I stood, so I always felt like I just returned back to where I started. We deconstructed everything to the point of nihilism. Here, we may still be studying "dismal sciences," but we're not stuck in the ivory tower. Yes, we've circled the wagons good, but that's the state of the world now. Our globalization instructor introduces new terms that come up in econ. QM goes hand in hand with the numbers that largely run the world. The discussions we have are stimulating.

It's a joy to be with such a motivated, optimistic, intelligent group of young people. I like the small IR/PS campus nestled inside the larger UCSD and UC systems. I like saying hi to everyone and never being late for class because I can leave the library 3 minutes before the hour and still arrive anywhere on IR/PS with enough time to find a seat. I like having a locker again. I attend Chinese class and feel like a 7 year old, because that's about my level, even though we're talking about important things like the Party's 16th plenary or how leaders in Guangzhou got a horde of foreign diplomats and local officials to swim in the heavily polluted Pearl River. I like our computer guys and the movies we're watching in the Chinese Language Film Society.

My life is simple now. I study, meditate, sleep, study, and do it all again. But it's not all work. I have had time to make ants on a log and sample a classmate's chocolate birthday cake.

Chatcha later.

Fred's Third: Yep, we're really that busy.

It's been a while since anyone has posted. First weeks of class... yep. We're in deep. This past week (or has it been two weeks now?) has been a total blur. Class after class, social after social, almost every waking hour has been filled with academics, meet-and-greets, or preparation thereof.

I'm not sure how accurate my list will be but from what I recall so far of the past couple days of actual classes we've had:

- a paper due for PMP
- several readings for the same class, of which a good lucky few of us were cold-called on
- a problem set for ME, two if we did the extra credit as well
- a lookup-and-report case study assignment for Globalization
- several readings for this class too
- a mini-test, several exhaustive sample problems, and TA sessions to attend for QM1
- insert-whichever-language-class-homework-you-had-to-do-here
- assorted speakers, career-oriented presentations, networking events, and unofficial "socials"

How we still find time to eat and sleep is beyond me. Anyways, back to Econ =)

--Fred--

Fred's Second: Orientation (getting pointed in the right direction)

So this past week and a half was orientation; a several day long process by which we get acclimated and familiar with the IR/PS program. Specifically we had a brief introductions with a) some of the faculty, b) the courses proper that make up IR/PS, and c) our fellow students, both first years and second years.

Let's start with the faculty. With half a hope that fluffing over the professors will benefit me somehow academically in the near future, I think the best most concise way to describe the collection of genius here is just "wow." Googling the names of professors I learned what a 'curriculum vitae' was and just how incredible the level of expertise and experience is here at IR/PS. Leading edge researchers, authorities in their respective fields of study, advisors to some of the highest tier positions in government ~ they're all here.

Faculty members are also advisors to IR/PS students themselves. The professors will keep track of our progress and make sure we stay pointed in the right direction. We were assigned to professors generally by our regional focus and career track ~ I say "generally" because in my case I was assigned to Professor G. Hanson, one of the Economics professors here at IR/PS and an expert on foreign investment, immigration, and international trade. We're able to switch to another advisor if we so choose (perhaps one that is more familiar, more similar in focus, etc.) In my case, Prof. Hanson is neither a Southeast Asia-oriented professor nor one who was focused on International Politics, but he was still pretty helpful and gave me input on my course load this coming quarter.

All first year IR/PS students generally have the same course load, at least for the first quarter. This is kinda nice because all of us incoming new students get to know each other throughout all our classes. Except for languages, all first year students take the same IR/PS core (IRCO) classes unless we petition out of them:

IRCO 400: Policy Making Processes
IRCO 401: Managerial Economics
IRCO 412: Globalization, the World System, and the Pacific
IRCO 453: Quantitative Methods I

I considered petitioning out of Globalization (IRCO 412) because my undergraduate courses basically revolved around the matter. After speaking to professors Haggard and Naughton about it though, I decided I'll probably be better off staying in the class. Maybe it'll be a slightly low-impact class in my otherwise pounding schedule and it'll be a good chance to get a better grasp of the quantitative side of case studies in globalization, something I'm admittedly pretty crappy at. According to the second years, the first quarter is by far the most difficult and demanding quarter so having a class that "feels like home" will be a bright spot in my schedule.

Probably the best part of orientation were the opportunities to meet a few of the second years; those students who were standing in our shoes last year but can now give us blunt and honest impressions of the program. Throughout the course of orientation, we were able to hear from second year IR/PS students about the classes, internships, the professors, and opportunities that we shouldn't miss.

Orientation finished off with a Dean's Reception social. First year students mingled with second year students and professors. After a week-long orientation it was a relaxing way to round off our introduction to IR/PS.

--Fred--