Section 3 The MATH

This section will provide an overview of a selection of mathematical skills that will be useful in the course. It will not go into everything, but at least provides a start.

MLE will include a range of concepts and skills from linear algebra, calculus, and probability and statistics. You do not need to be an expert in these to succeed in the course, but there are some fundamentals that will make your life easier.

Again, the end goal here is not the math. The end goal is to help your become great social scientists. Some popular methods in social science rely on these concepts. The more you can build an intuition for how, when, where, and why these methods work, the more tools you will have to carry out your research and the more credibility and command you will have over the research you conduct.

Think about restaurants you have visited. There is a difference between a server who says, “Well we have a chicken” and a server who can tell you exactly how the chicken was cooked, what ingredients were used in the sauce, and maybe even how the chicken was raised. Both dishes may be delicious, but you may gain more trust and understanding from the second.

This will not happen overnight nor by the end of the course, but the goal is to continue to progress in understanding. If you pursue a career in academia, this is only the start of years of continued learning and practice. It is a marathon, not a sprint.

Extra Resources

These are some additional resources that may help supplement the sections to follow. These provide far more detail than you will need in the course, but because of that, are much more comprehensive than the notes that will be outlined:

• A linear algebra web series. The notes on vector and matrices here will be brief, so this playlist 3Blue1Brown goes into more detail on specific. topics
• An alternative way of thinking about vectors and matrices is here which gives a more geometric interpretation, which some people find helpful.
• Will Moore and David Siegel. A Mathematics Course for Political and Social Research. You can get the book or visit the website, which includes some problem sets and solutions, as well as a video syllabus.