Making Decisions has overlapped with all three of my other classes. We spent weeks on probability at the same time I was learning about probability in Statistics. The professors even did the exact same “birthday problem” exercise. After finishing up probability we talked about expected utility theory, which Welfare Economics is partially founded on. Right now I am doing tomorrow’s reading, The Paradox of Choice, and the book has already referenced Amartya Sen who was mentioned in Welfare Economics on Tuesday, and Cass Sunstein who was mentioned in Civil Liberties two weeks ago.

I’m enjoying the book. I wish we didn’t have to do a group silly group Powerpoint presentation for the class, though.

tags: brown, class

COGS0500: Making Decisions
Life is full of decisions. Some decisions are made rationally, others could be improved. This course considers the psychology of human decision-making, the analysis of optimal decision-making, and implications for individual action and social policy. Topics include: chance and preference (e.g., how do consumers weigh attributes when making purchases?); the value of information (e.g., when should physicians order expensive diagnostic tests?); risky choice (e.g., is it rational to play the lottery?).

COGS0090: Quantitative Methods in Psychology
Statistical methods and their application to behavioral data. Topics include elements of probability theory, correlational techniques, principles of hypothesis testing, and analysis of variance.

ECON1170: Welfare Economics
This course is about economic theories of what’s good or bad: economic efficiency, externalities, social choice, voting, social welfare, mechanism design, and so on. Note that the course isn’t about “welfare programs,” rather it’s about social welfare in the abstract. This is the area where economics, philosophy, and ethics overlap.

and, as of yesterday

POLS1820D: Civil Liberties: Moral, Political and Legal Approaches
This course will examine major constitutional controversies within the context of wider debates in political and legal theory. Readings from Supreme Court cases and prominent texts in political/legal theory. Topics include free speech, privacy, abortion, takings and capital punishment.

What is there to say? No philosophy. I am finishing up my concentration requirements next semester. More quantitative classes than ever before. Civil Liberties will be the first seminar I have taken at Brown. Slightly worried it will be too similar to classes I have taken before. On the other hand, my other classes are not like anything I have taken before, so maybe that balances it out.

I finally won some bookshelf speakers on eBay. Soon enough music will fill my room again and my first foray into used low-end audio will be complete. I set up my Sansui 661 on top of my refrigerator already.

tags: brown, class, list

Yesterday was the first day of class. As usual, it was stressful. My thoughts so far:

• Privacy in a Networked Society was fascinating. I think most of the other people in the class are Public Policy concentrators. Unfortunately, it meets at a nonstandard seminar time — 10:00-12:20pm, which blocks out at other morning MWF classes. It also required an oral presentation and an oral exam which I am not excited about, and a mega paper at the end of the semester. All of the reading assignments are also available online and don’t seem particularly dense; I feel like I could get a lot out of just reading the material on the syllabus on my own. Anyway, because the professor talked for an hour and half, I missed…

• Making Decisions. After reading Blink, this class looked interesting. I got the syllabus and the first lecture online, but I’m going to have to go Friday and Monday in order to decide whether to take it over Privacy. It would be less work and thus a better fifth class if that is what I end up doing. According to the Powerpoint, the class is “a little” cognitive psychology, social psychology, math, statistics and philosophy, political science and economics. I like that.

• Quantitative Methods in Psychology will be fine. It is the only class I know I am taking for sure. The professor is a smiley Italian guy who reminds me of my Microeconomics teacher. I think every other person in the class is taking it to fulfill a concentration requirement, so maybe that gives me a leg up.

• Sounds and Symbols: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. I think this is one of those classes that seems REALLY cool during shopping period, but would get frustrating or boring fast. The atmosphere was flaky all around.

Today is a bit more certain. I am shopping Analyzing Education Policy: Lessons from Economics, Modern Political Thought, and Public Economics.

tags: brown, class

If I am going to do any social science in future, I need to take some kind of applied statistics course. The trouble is that Brown offers a bunch of them in different departments:

• PSYC0090/COGS0090 “Quantitative Methods in Psychology”: A survey of statistical methods used in the behavioral sciences. Topics include graphical data description, probability theory, confidence intervals, principles of hypothesis testing, analysis of variance, correlation, and regression, and techniques for categorical data. Emphasizes application of statistical methods to empirical data.
• SOC1100 “Introductory Statistics for Social Research”: Introduction to descriptive and inferential statistics: measures of central tendencies and variability, sampling, tests of significance, correlation, and regression. Also includes the use of computers in data analysis. Knowledge of elementary algebra is assumed.
• ECON 1620 “Introduction to Econometrics”: Probability and statistical inference. Estimation and hypothesis testing. Simple and multiple regression analysis. Applications emphasized. Prerequisite: EC 11. Weekly one-hour computer conference required.
• APMA 0650 “Essential Statistics” A first course in statistics emphasizing statistical reasoning and basic concepts. Comprehensive treatment of most commonly used statistical methods through linear regression. Elementary probability and the role of randomness. Data analysis and statistical computing using Excel. Examples and applications from the popular press and the life, social and physical sciences. No mathematical prerequisites beyond high school algebra.
• EDUC 1110 “Introductory Statistics for Education Research and Policy Analysis “Introduction to the key ideas underlying statistical and quantitative reasoning. A hands-on pedagogical approach utilizing examples from education research and public policy analysis. Topics include the fundamentals of probability, descriptive and summary statistics, statistical inference, bivariate and multivariate regression, correlation, and analysis of variance. Computer-based data analysis reinforces statistical concepts.”

At this point the only thing I have to base my choice on are professor ratings on the Critical Review. All of them seem like they could be pretty boring at times. I don’t know about difficulty levels at all. I like the idea of econometrics mostly because I enjoyed reading Freaknomics and because my amusing Econ 11 professor teaches it.

tags: brown, class

Half way through my class. The summer is starting to feel kind of long. Have I really only been home about a month? But I guess that’s longer than it sounds.

I had my midterms last week. Did a bit better on Econ than I expected and a bit worse than I expected on Criminology. It is a pleasant surprise. I’m tempted to take more economics now when I get back to school. I’m already registered for Economics and Law. Urban Economics and The Welfare State in America look interesting. I guess this is that the point in every student’s undergraduate career that they especially start to regret taking certain classes rather than other ones. Why did I ever take American Popular Culture or Philosophy and Psychoanalysis? And I probably could have skipped out on Human Factors too.

To my amusement I got an letter in the mail from the Dean of the College at Brown informing me I have been placed on “Serious Warning.” I assume this has something to do with the fact that it took weeks and weeks for the Registrar to post grades for all but one of my classes. At first I was a little worried — could my transfer credits have gotten muddled? — but no, of course not. On the Registrar’s site itself I’m listed as in good academic standing. Maybe this will give me a bit of kick in the butt to do better next year though, or at least work harder.

I’ve started listening to music again. I figured out how to connect my computer to my mom’s amplifier in the living room. The speakers are a little fuzzy, but much better than the tinny ThinkPad ones. I’ve been listening to a lot of electronic dance music lately: Tussle (thanks McComas!), Simian Mobile Disco, Justice, and of course old favorites like the Knife and Madonna. All sweet chiptune music from Nullsleep and Bitshifter which is available free for download at 8bitpeoples.

I hula-hooped until I dripped sweat this morning.

At the recommendation of Maurie’s mother I have purchased Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Oil Magic Soap to remedy the coloy of acne that cropped up on my forehead since I have come home. I wonder if the other flavors are just as effective? Peppermint is all right but makes feel like I am lathering up with toothpaste.

What else? I purchased Final Fantasy VII this morning. And I’m not embarrassed to say it! A good video game is just what I need to fill up lonely hours, and it gives me an incentive to do my homework faster. Haven’t figured out how good it is yet, but as far as I know it’s as critically acclaimed as RPGs go.

I asked my grandfather what the point of his research is right now (on phase transitions, I think) and he told me that was a philosophical question. I asked him what was in it for the people who were funding him. Didn’t get a straight answer either. Did you know Physics used to be called Natural Philosophy? I’m not surprised. Maybe it’s not so surprising I ended up studying philosophy.

tags: brown, class, gaming, health, music

Today in class we were going over a quiz. One question involved an indifference map of cereal and milk. The indifference curves (three were pictured) were right-angled, indicating milk and cereal are perfect complements. Various points on the three curves were labeled, and the question asked us to select the points you would never pick not matter what the price level. And lots of people got confused by this, and instead tried to select the infeasible points based on the budget constraint line that was also part of the graph.

What the question was actually asking was for the labeled points which weren’t on the vertex of the indifference curves, because the vertex points were the only ones of optimal choice. (If you only use a cup of a cereal when a cup of milk is available to you and vice versa, units of one good are only worth anything to you insofar as you have an equal amount of units of the complementary good.)

Anyway, we were going over this problem, and one guy asked a question which indicated that he was confusing quantity and utility. That is, he got the answer wrong because he thought the “worst” point was the one with the smallest quantity of total goods, because of the assumption of non-satiation — that we would always rather have more than less. The trouble is that the “more” applies to utility, not number of luxury cars, or wads of cas.

I feel like this is why economics often gets a bad rap — because it seems like economic theory is all about maximizing profits and trying to consume the most possible. This makes it seem both narrowly applicable and depressing. But if you think about economic theory as a way of modeling how we all maximize utility in our daily life, it’s a different story. Non-satiation is a valid assumption in regards to utility. Everyone would rather be happier. But that doesn’t doesn’t mean because we have non-satiation of utility that we have non-satiation of anything else. In fact, utility is the only thing I can think of where it is realistic to assume non-satiation. Everything else — food, money, luxury cars, air, water — has diminishing marginal utility. The only reason that people are more greedy about money (hoard it up, want more than is necessary to live) is because they have tied the amount of money they have to their happiness and wellbeing — they have equated money and utility — which is fallacious.

tags: class, philosophy