Sometimes I have to wonder whether my econometrics professor has been following developments in his field over the last two decades. I say this because he seems to have no intention of teaching me or my classmates how to use Stata, R, EViews or any other statistical computing environment.

I'm more than a little worried. Half the goal of most undergraduate econometrics courses is to teach students how to use a statistics package. In fact, two of the most popular introductory econometrics textbooks — Jeffery Wolldridge's Introductory Econometrics, and James Stock and Mark Watson's Introduction to Econometrics — include Stata datasets and integrate the software into their various lessons. Fortunately, I'm enough of a computer nut that I've mastered the basics of R, and I can use Stata without too much difficulty. But it really shouldn't be the students' onus to both determine they to learn Stata and teach themselves the package. There's a reason we're paying as much as we are to be here!

No doubt my professor would respond to my criticism with the facile assertion that one needs to understand the math underlying econometrics, as opposed to the more practical aspects, like using a statistics package. To some degree, I would agree — economists should know what a BLUE is, for instance. Shunning statistics software in its entirety, however, makes it extremely difficult to analyze all but the smallest datasets, which are uninteresting and much less useful than their beefier brethren.

Needless to say, it takes every ounce of my self-restraint not to stand up in the middle of an econometrics lecture and declare a fatwa.

***

On the other end of the enjoyment spectrum, I have nothing but praise for my first history course at college, The French Enlightenment. It is, by the professor's own admission, more of a "great books" course than a traditional history course, but that's fine with me. The reading list looks promising, and the professor is fantastic.

I just finished René Descartes' Discourse on Method for tomorrow morning. I like René, even if he comes across as mind-numbingly arrogant and egocentric. (His arrogance seems even more pronounced in the original French, though that may have more to do with the fact that 17th century French looks so much more archaic than the English translation than anything about the man.)

I'll write something about my other two courses — Real Analysis and Intermediate Macroeconomics — soon.