Dr. Greenlaws ECON 300

I could not be happier to be finished. This semester was so tough, but I survived… we all did! (hopefully..)

I hope everyone has a great summer!

Having finished the final draft research paper and looking back on
all the research assignments we had to do to get to this point, I
think the most helpful assignments we did all semester were the
data appendix and the research proposal.  The research proposal
allowed me to really think about my original topic and do some
more extensive research on it.  This led me to switch my topic
around to the one I ended up doing my final paper on.  It was the
more logical choice and much easier to find data on (not to
mention way easier to structure my paper).  Doing the data
appendix early on in the semester also helped me in defining my
topic because I was able to figure what data I could and could not
find.  Plus, it really saved a lot of time when it came down to
running the regressions and writing the paper.

So now it is officially summertime.  I could not be any happier after a very stressful last couple of days, but upon reflection this has been a good semester.  I have learned a lot, especially from this class.  I feel as if I know more about economics and I am starting to learn a whole new side to the field.  This class has taught me so much, not just about research or statistical analysis, but also I am gaining an understanding as to how all the knowledge that I have learned from my past classes has been discovered.  I am grateful for all of this, and I am extremely satisfied with my decision to choose economics as my major.  I hope everyone has a great summer and I am exciting for next semester and what is to come!

In case there was ambiguity, I submitted the paper. It seems… anti-climactic, after all this time. Regardless, it’s out of my hands, now. I read it. I had friends read it. I had friends of friends read it. I had professors read it. I took it to the Writing Center. On some level, I think I’ve done all I could do.

… and, honestly, I feel kind of good about it. I was certainly apprehensive after I got the rough draft back, but I made all the corrections, took out a lot, and added things that I think greatly improved the paper. “A” work? Eh, guess we’ll find out soon enough. Either way, I think I at least did alright (I suppose those might be famous last words…)

I hope the rest went well for the rest of you, my friends!

After a long night in the Econ house and some help with EViews, I am almost done with my paper.  I just want to revise it as many times as possible before I send it.  I feel like I am missing something, but I have gone over it many times and had multiple people proofread my paper from all different majors including Econ majors so I should not feel so worried!  I guess the time has come where I need to just accept what I have, be confident and send it.

I sent my paper to a friend that already graduated from MW that was
an Econ major almost two days ago and I still haven’t gotten it back
from him.  I just realized that it is already 11 am and I haven’t heard
a peep from him.  I’m starting to get nervous about getting this paper
back and having time to make the needed changes to it before
submitting it. I’m hoping to hear from him soon or…

After having run all my regressions and extra tests, it feels SO good
to say that I am finally done with EViews forever. The program
itself wasn’t hard to learn or use, but it was tedious. And very
irritating. The layout of the results was definitely easy to follow and
organized very well but running the actual tests themselves was not
the easy task. I’m not sure if other people had this issue or if it as just
me (to be fair, I am terrible with computers and technology in
general). Regardless, I am happy to be done with this program for
the foreseeable future.

The one thing I’m really glad I learned from the presentations is that
having “bad” data is okay.  I saw that other people also got not so
great results from eviews when they ran their regressions, which
takes a lot of stress off.  I was really worried that I was the only one
who had gotten results that weren’t good.  It also showed me how to
work with bad results.  I didn’t know how to tackle presenting my
bad results and if I should try and change my model/hypothesis
around to fit them.  Now I know that having bad results is a semi-
common occurrence and there are ways to work with them.

I sent my paper to another econ major on Friday to get it reviewed, and she just sent me back her recommendations to make my paper better. I think they will definitely help a lot! She had some really good points, and already taking this class herself she knows what will get you the best grade. But overall, she thought my paper was good so I suppose that’s a good sign. Now I just need to make a few changes and do some touch ups, and then my paper will be ready to turn in. I’m just nervous to actually send it.

Time to wrap it up so I would like to briefly write about some of the things that I learned from this challenging task. I am not very good with deadlines and I believe that strict observance of the rules can hinder one’s performance. Structure of this class gave us a lot of room for creative thinking. The fact that I could choose any topic we wanted made me ask myself questions like: what really interests me? What do I really care about and why I care about it? He who can really answer those questions with precision on a personal level knows that he has a live to live and work to do. Those are very important questions that today’s youth will have to answer at some point. I though that this class caused me to think in this way a lot more than I used to for which I am thankful.

Another thing that I learned was about concept of productivity. At some point during the semester I thought about the 80/20 concept, which basically means that anywhere you look, on a distributional level, 20% of workers will complete 80% of the work. I really felt that it was true with my efforts. I never knew what article or web-site will actually get me closer to completing the project. When friends asked me; how far did you get today with you project? I always answered “this many hours far” because some hours even the “useless” ones were still progress.

Basically, nothing is for granted so seek answers!