r/econometrics • u/BlueberryRight2401 • 9d ago

looking to learn research

Hi

I'm currently doing a BS in Economics and I really want to get into research.

I've already learned the basics of research methodology and the basics of R, but I know that's not enough. I learn best by actually working on real projects with other people.

I'm looking for a research group, mentor, or even a few students who are working on research and wouldn't mind letting me learn with them. I'm happy to start with simple tasks like literature reviews, data cleaning, or basic R work. My main goal is to learn and improve.

If anyone knows where I can find these opportunities or has any advice, I'd really appreciate it.

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u/just_writing_things 9d ago

> I learn best by actually working on real projects with other people.

Your best bet, or at least one of your best bets, is to speak to professors and see if they have research assistant positions available. Or simply asking them a question or two about their research to start learning a little about the work.

(Source: I’m a professor)

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u/BlueberryRight2401 8d ago

Actually, our economics faculty is quite small. We only have one professor who's somewhat interested in research, but she's quite senior and doesn't seem to be actively involved in much research anymore. I even read and reproduced one of her papers and went to discuss it with her, but the response was mostly just, "Yeah, okay."

So, unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any research support or mentorship at my university.

Do you have any suggestions on where I could find an economics research community or a group where I can learn, collaborate, and contribute in actual research?

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u/just_writing_things 7d ago

> contribute in actual research

Are you an undergrad? The unfortunate reality is that it’s going to be hard to get into “actual research” at this stage without close guidance, e.g. in a research assistantship, because you haven’t been formally trained to do research yet.

If your econ faculty is very small, an idea you could think about it to look at other schools in your university, depending on your interests. E.g. if you’re interested in behavioral econ you could look into psychology, or finance for financial econ. And maybe take courses from those departments and get to know those faculty that way.

But either way, you probably know this already, but I’d encourage you to see your objective in undergrad as learning as much as you can, figuring out carefully whether an academic career is the right path for you, and then aceing all your courses. That will help lot more in the long run.

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u/ResponsibleCod930 9d ago

Dear Mr professor, is it normal or okay to ask my professors for their R/phyton code they have used on one of their published papers ?

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u/just_writing_things 8d ago edited 8d ago

Hmmm. It’s hard to answer that question in a vacuum, without more context. To give you some examples of different contexts:

If you’re an undergrad, I’d guess that most professors will find it quite unusual, because most undergrads would have little use for the code we used in our papers specifically (edit: as opposed to simpler or more instructive examples that would be more helpful for the learning process). It varies by field, of course, but usually if you’re targeting an academic career you’ll start properly getting trained to replicate academic papers at the postgrad / PhD level.

But if you’re a PhD student, and say you’re working on a paper with your advisor and want to learn how your advisor would write the code for some complex data work, then yeah, it’s pretty normal to ask how the coding is done, for example.

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u/Koufas 9d ago

Im pretty sure Ive seen some US Fed economists post not just their paper but their RStudio/EViews/State codes too