Learners will find prior training in or exposure to economics, development, political science, public policy, public health, statistics, and related fields will be helpful for the MITx MicroMasters program in Data, Economics, and Development Policy.
The program team recommends that learners possess a solid understanding of undergraduate-level algebra and calculus before beginning the program. Some DEDP courses require the use of the R programming language for data analysis—these courses will offer an introductory module to help learners get started.
Additionally, learners should be prepared in several important topic areas for each course. Please see the links below each course name for suggested preparation courses. These preparation courses are not required to earn your DEDP MicroMasters credential. We strongly encourage you to take any preparation courses on edX for free on the audit track. Some courses listed are also available on MIT Open Courseware, a database of archived MIT residential courses in a fully learner-driven format—or the MIT Open Learning Library, a free online learning platform hosting archived MIT residential courses in a more interactive format.
Learners are invited to use the Course Previews to evaluate their current skills. These previews provide a taste of the content and exercises that will be covered in each course. If you are new to these subjects, or eager to refresh your memory, each course preview also includes some available resources. These resources may also be useful to refer to over the course of the semester.
A score of 60% or above in the course previews indicates that you are ready to take the course, while a score below 60% indicates that you should further review the concepts covered before beginning the course. Please see below for links to the Course Preview Documents.
Unfortunately, at this time, a Course Preview is not available for 14.009x Good Economics for Hard Times and we do not know whether or when a preview may become available. However, as 14.009x has no pre-requisites (unlike most DEDP courses, which recommend proficiency in one or more topic areas in mathematics and/or economics), the course should be suitable for all learners.
None |
Preparation Topics and Courses
Core Courses (All learners must complete all three of these courses)
edX: Calculus 1A: Differentiation
edX: Calculus 1C: Coordinate Systems & Infinite Series
Data Analysis for Social Scientists
Designing and Running Randomized Evaluations
OCW: Statistics for Applications
OCW: Introduction to Statistics and Probability
Elective Courses (Learners must choose two of these courses—Learners must choose at least one Advanced Elective Course)
Introductory Electives
This course has no pre-requisites.
The Challenges of Global Poverty
Various resources will be made available throughout the course for students to learn or refresh on the most important topics.
Advanced Electives
Foundations of Development Policy
edX: AP Microeconomics
OCW: Statistics for Applications
Political Economy and Economic Development
edX: Microeconomics