Nikki A
- Research Program Mentor
MSc candidate at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Expertise
Economics, Marketing, Econometrics
Bio
Hello! I'm Nikki. I did my undergraduate at the University of Toronto in Business, Commerce, and Math and did significant coursework in advanced economics and econometrics. During that time, I worked as a research assistant in advertising & media, economic history, education, and behavioral economics! I also was a teaching assistant for introductory economics, and intermediate and advanced marketing & data courses. This scope of work helped me narrow down my research interests to political and developmental economics, urban planning, and immigration policy. I'm now headed into the Masters of Quantitative Economics program at UCLA to better my technical skills before I apply to PhD programs. In my free time I love baking, climbing, hiking, and reading! I'm currently working my way through the 3 Body Problem series and have quite a long TBR list left to go. I also love exploring new places and meeting new people.Project ideas
The Game of Life: The College Path versus The Career Path
This project focuses on life outcomes for individuals who took different paths in life. You would first conduct a literature review to determine the current state of the research as well as develop an idea of what your focal point of "outcome" would be (i.e. wealth, career progression, etc). Demographic data would be obtained using Census/ACS/Other available data, combined, and visualized for comparison. Then, given the time, students could develop a small model to see whether there is some sort of relationship between education and life outcome.
Conduct a Literature Review
For students that are still considering the research they want to do, a literature review is a great way to get a surface-level understanding of the current state of research before committing to an idea. You will be able to read, understand, and synthesize your findings into a comprehensive report. Given the time, you can go further into then defining a question to answer or selecting a research paper to replicate, and follow the due steps.