with almost two weeks of senior year under my belt, i can already tell this semester is going to be wild.
my econometrics course has been really enjoyable so far. i like it so much that i'm (possibly) switching from the 400-level undergraduate class to the 600-level graduate class, which includes an extra project on a topic of my choice (i.e. my thesis, duh). yesterday, my professor, dr. mayer, offered to help me explore panel data analysis, which is different cross-sections of data over different time periods.
speaking of thesis (sort of a bad segue, but w/e), i've finally settled on a topic, thanks in no small part to dr. guo's genius recommendations. roughly, i'll be analyzing environmental track records of the various provinces and major economic centers (beijing, shanghai, shenzhen, chongqing, etc.) in china and using economic data to determine what type of industry/development is better for the environment. using statistical analyses that are kind of complex for an undergraduate, especially one who's not an economics/math/business major, i'll make recommendations to provincial governments as to what they can and should do to improve both their constituents' social well-being (including environmental health) and their economic situations.
it's kind of exciting to have a topic that i can start researching. i have the statistical yearbooks from 1995 to 2009, which gives me a solid number (15) of years to analyze. should be fun...
i'll try to keep my blog updated as my thesis progresses. hopefully i'll have time to take a short break every once in a while and share my successes, challenges and failures with the one or two people who read this.
until then,
m
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