SSDA Student Engagement Program

June 26, 2019 - ssda@msu.edu

Michigan State University's Social Science Data Analytics (SSDA) is a Social Science College level initiative to promote quantitative analysis throughout the college and beyond.  The goal of the SSDA Student Engagement Program (SSDA-SEP) is to prepare future data scientists to tackle social science questions.  Through this student engagement program, social science students will develop a deeper understanding of how quantitative analysis and programming skills could benefit their research and studies, while non-social science students, especially those with machine learning or programming backgrounds, could apply those skills to address important social science problems.

SSDA-SEP has three engagement tiers: (1) SSDA Member; (2) SSDA Associate; and (3) SSDA Fellow. Students progress from the Member tier to the Fellow tier over time: initially they participate in workshops and attend guest lectures and brownbag seminars to develop data analytics knowledge and skills, then they lead an SSDA event to polish their leadership skills in a team environment, and ultimately they apply data analytics techniques to original research which has a social science component.

While SSDA primarily services College of Social Science students, the SSDA-SEP program is open to the entire MSU community.