Introduction to Computational Social Science

With a vast amount of data now collected on our online and offline actions -- from what we buy, to where we travel, to who we interact with -- we have an unprecedented opportunity to study complex social systems. This opportunity, however, comes with scientific, engineering, and ethical challenges. In this hands-on course, we develop ideas from computer science and statistics to address problems in sociology, economics, political science, and beyond. We cover techniques for collecting and parsing data, methods for large-scale machine learning, and principles for effectively communicating results. To see how these techniques are applied in practice, we discuss recent research findings in a variety of areas. Prerequisites: introductory course in applied statistics, and experience coding in R, Python, or another high-level language.