I am so excited to start graduate school. I was accepted to Stony Brook University masters of political science program. My classes begin on August 26th and I finally have my class schedule.
I will be taking intro to statistics, research design, dynamics of public opinion and passionate politics: mobilization, interest groups and social movements. On top of that I may replace a class with time series statistics or see if I can just add it to my schedule. The intro to statistics will be an easy A, it covers basic statistical tests like T test and F test then moves on to regression. I am familiar with and regularly use those concepts and statistics. Research design should be interesting, I am already familiar with psychology research design which has a lot of similarities. But it will be interesting to see the differences in research designs between psychology and political science. I am really looking forward to the dynamics of public opinion course. That course will examine the relationships between political opinions and the individual’s values, knowledge and personality. I am curious to see how different individual factors impact political ideology. I am also really excited about the passionate politics course. In that course I will learn about factors that impact political mobilization including group identity, personal values and emotions. I have been reading extensively about social movements over the past year and I think I will really enjoy that course. Finally there is the time series statistics, though it is not as glamorous as something like passionate politics time series statistics are an import tool in analyzing political phenomenon. Time series statistics involve analyzing and modeling data that occurs over time. So you could use to look at the impact of certain event or actions have on the future. For example you could look at the decline in Obama’s approval rating as it relates to NSA surveillance scandal.
The only problem is that I may have to drop a class to take time series. Since my research design and intro to statistics are required that would mean I would have to drop dynamics of public opinion or passionate politics. I am going to ask about the workload and see if maybe I can just add the class onto my schedule. I think I can manage an extra class since both intro to stats and time series will be easy for me. I already do time series stats as a part of my job and I use basic stats on a regular basis. Also I think the research design course will be easy since research methodology and the philosophical grounding of research design are areas that I am strong in. But we will see.
At this point we just need to finish with the logistics of getting to NY from Austin and getting set up there. Due to all of the work that needs done to move across the country I have not had as much time as I would like to post to my blog. I apologize for neglecting the blog for the past couple of weeks and I apologize for the neglect my blog will see over the next 6 weeks. But once I am settled in NY things should get back to normal and y’all should see me posting more often.