Hausman: Administration for Josh Hausman's sections (M 11-12, and 12-1)

• Office hours: Thursdays 2:10-4 in Evans 608-3 and by appointment. 
• Email: jhausman@econ.berkeley.edu 
  • In my experience, email is useful for answering administrative questions and for setting up meeting times. But it not ideal for interaction about the material - it's much better if you ask questions in section or office hours so that we can have some back and forth. 
• Attendance at the first section is mandatory. Those who do not show up risk being dropped from the course. 
• Section Grade: This will be 10 percent of your overall grade. It will be entirely determined by weekly quizzes. These will consist of one short question on the previous weeks' readings, with the goal of encouraging you to keep up with the readings - something you will be glad you did when exams approach. The first section's quiz (8/31) will not be graded, and when computing your final section grade, I will drop your two lowest quiz scores. Thus one or two absences will not harm your section grade.  
• Role of section: My role will be to help you better understand the material in the readings and lecture. You should see section as a chance to ask about anything in the readings or lecture that confused you. Indeed, sections will work much better if you ask lots of questions. Almost always more than one student has the same question, so asking questions tends to benefit not only you, but also other students. My hope is that we will have many lively discussions. I may at times express my own point of view about an argument or article. I encourage all of you to actively disagree and argue with me. The point of section is not to convince you of one point of view, but to help you think about the material in new ways.   
• About me: I'm grew up in Wisconsin, and then went to Swarthmore College. After college, I spent two years as a research assistant at the Federal Reserve in Washington - this was back when working at the Federal Reserve was a routine, 9-5 job. Currently, I'm a 3rd year in the economics department Ph.D. program. This year I start writing my dissertation, which I'm hoping will be at the intersection of economic history and macro.