[Kudos]

I took this class in Fall 2013 with Byron Spencer, who is one of my favourite professors at Mac.

The class is essentially about learning how to analyze and design economic research studies. This culminates in completing a 20-page literature review on a topic of your choice.

The first part of the course focused on learning and relearning basic research and econometrics skills, as well as some practice with SPSS. Shortly thereafter, we did team presentations which involved analyzing and critiquing an article in a small group and leading the class discussion on this article. At this point, we presented our own lit review topics and led class discussions on them.

Spencer is a great prof and he is able to effectively lead discussions without intimidating anybody. He is very approachable and helpful. There were a lot of small assignments worth very little, and this was frustrating because of the time they took to complete, but all in all it wasn't hard to do well if you showed up and participated effectively.

This class (along with 4A03) intimidates a lot of people, but the profs are aware of this and do their best to make it less daunting. I ended up enjoying the class, and learned quite a lot.