[Kudos]

I took this class in Fall 2013 with Byron Spencer and Michel Grignon, each of whom taught half the course.

Dr. Spencer focused on macroeconomic issues of population aging and how it will affect Canadians. We looked at things like population projections and government expenditures; this was VERY informative and topical. We spent a lot of time discussing the media's perpetuation of the idea that an aging population will mean a crisis.

Dr. Grignon took over halfway through and taught the micro concepts of pensions and healthcare. This part was less interesting to me because my focus is macro, but still interesting.

This class was a LOT of work, but not in a bad way. We had weekly assignments that were quite long and designed to teach us about Excel and SPSS and how to use each for economic analysis. The best thing to do was to find friends to do the assignments with and help each other as you go. All in all, the assignments were a pain but they really did work in teaching us about both the subject matter and about statistical software. These were worth 25% of the total grade.

The midterm and final (cumulative) were completely reasonable. They were entirely written exams, but easy to study for and do well on. This is not a course you can skate by without doing the work, however. A lot of people struggled with the tests.

There was also a 10% participation/attendance mark.

It was a small class, which was nice, and the professors were on a first name basis with just about everyone. The SPSS/Excel training was really useful. Best of all, there was no textbook -- there were readings, but almost all of them could be found online and the rest were on reserve at Mills.

All in all, I learned a lot and it was a class that really helped me to engage with my discipline. Highly recommended.