Intermediate Mathematics for Social Scientists

Pedram Safari
Harvard University, Spring 2009

[Syllabus (pdf)] [Assignments] [Announcements] [Comments]

This course is geared towards graduate students of social sciences (disciplines such as government, education, psychology and the like). The focus will be on a conceptual understanding of vector calculus of functions of several variables and basic probability, learned through a variety of examples and applications. This will lay the foundations for the statistical methods that are widely used in social sciences. This course is a continuation of Basic Mathematics for Social Scientists in Fall 2008. Although that course is not officially a prerequisite, its contents are taken for granted.

You might come across other math course offerings whose syllabi overlap with ours, but at a different level or with different audience in mind. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need help to decide if this course is right for you.

Registration Information. Government 1020 (Harvard College/GSAS: 7487)

Textbook.

[SB] Carl P. Simon & Lawrence E. Blume, Mathematics for Economists, W. W. Norton, 1994. ISBN: 978-0-393-95733-4.

Meetings. MW 11am-noon in Lowell Lecture Hall B-15, and F 1:15-2:15 in CGIS-South S001.

Office hours. MW 12:30-2pm in CGIS South 310, or by appointment. Please feel free to step in during these times -- I will be happy to discuss any kind of math questions you might have, and it does not have to be related to the course.

Assignments will be posted here. ^{Updated frequently!}

Announcements

• If you are planning to attend the course, please e-mail me with the following information about yourself (one item per line and in order, please).
  1. Last name
  2. First name
  3. E-mail
  4. Contact number
  5. Hometown
  6. School/field of study
  7. Expected graduation date
  8. Reason for taking this course
  9. Highest level math course(s) you have ever taken (with dates)
  10. Professional softwares you are familiar with
  11. Extra-curricular interests and activities
  12. Something amusing, interesting or impressive about yourself

Comments

Your opinion on the course is important to us. You may also submit an anonymous feedback.

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Last updated Tuesday, January 20, 2009.
Pedram Safari, safari at fas dot harvard dot edu