Andrea Foulkes (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)
First-Year Seminar 53F | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 09:45 AM–11:45 AM
Students in this seminar will get their hands dirty playing with data as we explore how to be judicious consumers of it. The huge swaths of data now available allow us to tell stories, big and small, some true and some not so true. With an emphasis on news media representations, we will take a deep dive into thinking about how data are generated, what we can (and cannot) discern from data, and how we can wrangle it to create narratives. Seminars will emphasize discussions with a focus on public health applications. Students will reflect on seminar content through regular written assignment.
Note: Students will learn how to visualize and summarize data using R, an open-source and freely available programming language. No prior experience working with data or programming is required. Emphasis will be on communicating with data.