Drawing upon feedback from undergraduates and the Government Department’s extensive faculty expertise in teaching statistical methods, the Government Department has recently revised and updated its undergraduate curriculum in research methods.
The basic requirement for all concentrators – one course in statistical methods – did not change. However, the Government Department has redesigned its undergraduate methods courses to be more accessible to students with no previous training in statistics. Our new sequence of courses allows all students to gradually build the skills necessary to complete original political science research using quantitative methods and even to take the first graduate-level course in quantitative analysis (Gov 2001) before they graduate, if they so choose. The new courses include the following:
- Gov 50: Data
- Gov 51: Data Analysis for Politics (prerequisite: Gov 50 or equivalent)
- Gov 2001: Quantitative Analysis I (prerequisite: Gov 51 or equivalent)
Students who wish to meet only the minimum requirement for the concentration should take Gov 50: Data. Students with previous experience in statistics (e.g., those who received a 5 on the AP Statistics exam) are welcome to start with Gov 51: Data Analysis for Politics.
Concentrators are also still able to meet the methods requirement by taking a statistics course outside the Department (e.g., Stat 100 or Stat 104), but those students are required to take one additional Government elective.
Please see our FAQ page if you have any questions about the methods requirement, or contact the undergraduate office with questions.
To learn more about the field, please visit Quantitative Social Science in the Government Department.