Office Hours

Beginning the week of Sept 18th, my OH are Monday (2:30-3:30 pm) and Friday (10:30 am - 12:30 pm).

What will we do?

The thesis program emphasizes independent work on your way to completing a final thesis. A typical week will involve:

Meetings

Meetings are designed to provide encouragement, guidance and helpful suggestions when you get stuck on your thesis. Each week, you are responsible for meeting with me (a schedule will be posted on Slack). You will also be assigned a research group, and are expected to meet with your group once a week as well. Your meetings with with your group will entail going over your weekly research log.

Here are the research groups:

Evaluation

The senior research workshop spans two terms. At the end of the first term you will receive a “placeholder” grade of Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. At the end of the second term you will receive a letter grade that will be applied to both terms. (That is, your “placeholder” grade from the previous term will be converted to the same letter grade that you received for the second term.) Your overall GPA will be based on the two (identical) letter grades. Your Economics major GPA will use the letter grade only once.

I will employ a hybrid-labor based grading contract. Milestones are based on effort. I will either accept your milestone or decline (and provide a list of revisions that must be done to receive credit). Milestone 13 (Thesis) will be evaluated using a letter grade. I will provide each student with specifics about what they need to do to receive certain letter grades.

Final letter grades are assigned by a combination of the number of milestones you complete and the grade on the final thesis. The table above shows what is required for each final letter grade. For example: A final letter grade of A requires completing 15 weekly research logs, submitting all milestones, and receiving an A on the final thesis.

Course Milestones:

As the milestones approach, I will provide additional information on each milestone.

For milestones required for B- and lower see here

Weekly Research Logs

Successful independent research requires organization. It is therefore really important to maintain a detailed weekly log of your activities (goals, progress made towards goals, and problems encountered). Each person will have a Google Sheet which they should complete before our meetings. A final weekly log is due at the beginning of each week (Monday @ 9 am). You will need to meet with both me and your research group to receive credit for a weekly research log.

Honors

This workshop is the path to departmental honors. To graduate with Honors, a student must receive at least an A- in Econ 700 and a GPA of at least 3.5 in all economics courses. High Honors requires an A in Econ 700 and a GPA of 3.75 or more, and Highest Honors an A in Econ 700 and a GPA of 3.90 or more.

Honor Code

Intellectual honesty and respect for other’s words and ideas are core values of your professor, the college, and the broader academic community. You can and should base your research on the existing literature, and you can and should talk to professors, students, friends, and family about your work. Be vigilant, however, in recognizing the difference between your thoughts, results, and writing (your contribution to knowledge) and the contributions of others. Directly copying someone else’s work, ideas or results without attribution is an Honor Code violation that I take very seriously and that will have serious consequences. You must sign the Honor Code on all assignments and your final paper.

Focus

The thesis requires a lot of self-structure and focus. Here’s my advice on how to go about fostering this type of “deep work.”
• Each week, dedicate days and times when you work solely on your thesis in a distraction free environment. For example, on your calendar, block out Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30-10:30 am to work on your thesis. Generally, many people have their peak cognitive abilities in the morning (i.e. avoid scheduling times in the early afternoon).
• Multitasking and distractions are your enemy when doing deep work. You should not check email, social media, news sites, etc . . . during your blocked times.
• If you are like me, you are easily tempted by online distractions. I strongly recommend using Freedom, Leechblock, SelfControl, Screentime or other apps that will block sites (social media, news) or block all online activity. Use these apps on your phone so that you cannot check social media, email, etc.
• If you are interested in discovering more learning techniques and strategies, read up on Cal Newport. He’s a successful computer science professor at Georgetown who has interviewed a number of top undergraduate students.
• Get a Thesis Carrel. Use this space just to work on your thesis. Leave your phone in your room.

Tools

All tools are free (either Middlebury has obtained licenses or open source).

Slack

All communications and submissions of milestones will be done via Slack.

During the semester, I prioritize Slack over email. While you are always free to email me, expect longer delays via email.

GoogleDrive

Install and set up the Google Drive Desktop app on you computer. For a reference, see Middlebury’s guide to cloud services and scroll down to Google Drive. The app will allow you to work locally on your machine. There are two benefits for using Google Drive: a) I will have access to it and can help you with data management and coding b) it is cloud based and provides a backup to all of your work.

Statistical Software

I have a strong preference for STATA. You can download Version 18 here. R is another popular statistical package, but I will only be able to provide limit support.

Generative AI

AI tools are limited to the following purposed: a) to help assist in the literature review and b) help with coding. AI itself cannot be a source for your literature (i.e. you cannot cite “ChatGPT” as a source); you will still need to look up the original articles and review them. I will provide examples of how to implement tools like ChatGPT. AI tools may NOT be used in the writing of your thesis - this will be considered plagiarism and treated as a violation of Middlebury’s honor code.

Zotero

A powerful tool to organize all of your studies is Zotero. You can easily input sources, write up notes, and then reference studies. See Zotero install.
Also install the Zotero plug-in on your browser. Tip: Chrome seems to have a better plug-in than Safari.

Funding

Some projects may require funding to purchase data or administer lab or field experiments. If you anticipate that you will require funding, please discuss this with me as early as possible during the research process. The Undergraduate Research Office (URO) administers the senior research project supplement fund. Deadline is Oct 1.

ADA

Students who have Letters of Accommodation in this class are encouraged to contact me as early in the semester as possible to ensure that such accommodations are implemented in a timely fashion. For those without Letters of Accommodation, assistance is available to eligible students through the Disability Resource Center (formerly called Student Accessibility Services). Please contact Jodi Litchfield or Peter Ploegman, the ADA Coordinators, for more information: Peter Ploegman can be reached at or 802-443-2382 and Jodi Litchfield can be reached at or 802-443-5936. All discussions will remain confidential.