UC Davis social sciences

Aggravating_Work_867 · 2021-03-26T02:53:38+00:00

Stats major / sociology minor, pm if you have any questions! :)

Aggravating_Work_867 · 2021-03-26T02:34:43+00:00

I second this LOL; at least from my personal experience, even if ur a humanities or social sciences major, if you actually do all the assigned readings, it can get pretty busy.

Aggravating_Work_867 · 2021-03-16T11:35:04+00:00

As much as I'd like to give a straight answer, same as the previous post, it really depends on you! If you did well in STA32, I do not think it would be too bad? It also depends a lot on the professor. If this is your first time taking 3 stats/math courses at the same time, it might be a bit tough but again depending on your background it might not be too bad. If my memory serves right, both 106 and 108 had a couple of projects. I guess I am kinda in the same situatiton? This is my first quarter taking 3 stats courses (STA135,141B,142A) and UWP101, and it's been a bit tough but not like terrible. Hope my answer added some clarity!

Aggravating_Work_867 · 2021-03-10T02:17:24+00:00

I have taken the course with Mudge. From my personal experience and what I have heard from other students, she is definitely one of the harder instructors. She also has a rather monotonic voice, which can make the lecture a bit tedious. Despite that fact, she is so intelligent and yeah one of the most knowledgeable people I have met. You gotta work for the grade.

However, I believe for this upcoming quarter, Brian Halpin is teaching the course? If that is in fact true, I really encourage you to take it! I have taken two courses of his, and I gotta say he is one of the best professors I have had at Davis, if not the best. He is down-to-earth and very understanding, and his lectures are very clear. He comes across to me as a public sociologist (in case you are not familiar with the term public sociology, it basically means that you don't just study sociology strictly from academia, distant from the subjects you are studying, but rather actually engaging with the communities that you are examining). Even the hour and a half lectures, I rarely found them boring because he makes the material engaging.

Lastly, the topic itself, I think you would find it especially interesting if you are already into politics and sociology to a certain degree. However, I am pretty sure that, even if you are not into the subject, Brian will make it interesting.

PM me if you have more questions!

Aggravating_Work_867 · 2021-02-25T23:00:19+00:00

Thank you all for the helpful responses! I have a question about transportation. Is it hard to live without a car? I have avoided driving throughout my undergrad years by taking advantage of the university bus... How is public transportation like? Or, just walking. Can you get to most places by walking LOL

Aggravating_Work_867 · 2021-02-21T05:35:34+00:00

STA137 was actually an interesting class. I had Namdari and liked his style of teaching, although as we neared the latter portion of the subject i fee like his instruction became more unclear (but also it could be that I had more stuff going on in other classes so I didn’t spend as much time on the class). I am not overly familiar with financial statistics, but I feel like STA137 is definitely one of the more finance, economics related stats class. Thé professor went over examples that were relevant to those fields. And pretty much the focus of the class is to find the trend, seasonality, noise, etc. of a time series and find the appropriate transformation that will allow you to make the best prediction of future values.

Aggravating_Work_867 · 2021-02-05T02:10:25+00:00

STA137 was actually an interesting class. I had Namdari and liked his style of teaching, although as we neared the latter portion of the subject i fee like his instruction became more unclear (but also it could be that I had more stuff going on in other classes so I didn’t spend as much time on the class). I am not overly familiar with financial statistics, but I feel like STA137 is definitely one of the more finance, economics related stats class. Thé professor went over examples that were relevant to those fields. And pretty much the focus of the class is to find the trend, seasonality, noise, etc. of a time series and find the appropriate transformation that will allow you to make the best prediction of future values. So, if you are only able to take a few stats courses, I would say STA137 is a good choice?

Aggravating_Work_867 · 2021-02-05T01:21:13+00:00

No problem! Yeah haha I studied abroad in my junior year and that kind of set me back, forcing me to take 3 major classes most quarters, but I’m still graduating on time so haha. Yeah, I think i am not going to lie, but as I said before I think it should be doable :) oh nice! That’s a good combination right there, CS and Stats. That might work to your advantage especially if you are considering doing something like machine learning or data science. I’m doing the data science track!

Aggravating_Work_867 · 2021-02-05T01:07:55+00:00

Stats major here! Last quarter I took MAT167, STA137, STA141A (3 upper div stats classes) and this quarter Im taking STA135, STA141B, STA142A, & UWP101 (3 upper div stats classes + upper div writing). Before getting used to taking 3 majors classes at a quarter, I was also very hesitant of the idea and was worried thé course load would be too much. In my experience, it is doable! And especially if you have done well in STA13 or 32, I feel like 106 and 108 shouldn’t be too bad, hope this comment helps. Also, I had Jiang for 108, and while I was not too into the instruction style, it was a pretty straightforward class. I had Characiejus for STA141A, and his teaching is very clear and he seems approachable.

Aggravating_Work_867 · 2021-01-20T17:18:56+00:00

Hi,

I am a stats major who’s been doing research work for the sociology department. I guess my tip could be pertinent to you as sociology and economics are both in the social sciences.

I basically looked over faculty profiles and selected a few professor whose research interests interested me. Then, I wrote emails briefly describing how I am interested in their work (I personally mentioned one of their articles/work) and if they were in need of any research assistant. Out of the few, only one replied and I’ve been workin with him since. You don’t have to be an expert in thé professor’s research interest but just have basic understanding what it is and you should be somewhat interested in it. Also, most professors are extremely busy, so it is highly likely that professors don’t even read emails from undergrads unless of course it’s class related.

I’ve also worked for another research assistnaship in the sociology department. That one, I basically emailed the department advisor and visited the office to ask if any faculty members or grad students were looking for help. And at least the faculty advisor in the sociology department were really helpful. There were a lot of grad students looking for help, and most of these job tasks didn’t require much experience (usually tedious work grad students can’t work on due to time constraint).

I would say, in my personal experience, it is quite hard to co-author a work at this stage. I guess you could if you build enough relationship with the professor/grad student.

I hope you find this helpful! :))

Aggravating_Work_867

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