[gov3009-l] 10/23 Applied Stats: Cassandra Pattanayak

Hi everyone! This week at the Applied Statistics Workshop we will be welcoming *Cassandra Pattanayak*, Director of the Quantitative Analysis Institute and lecturer at Wellesley College. She will be presenting work entitled *Effects of Mentors and Advisors on Major Choice: A Naturally Re-Randomized Experiment and a Subclassified Observational Study*. Please find the abstract below and on the Applied Stats website here <https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/applied.stats.workshop-gov3009>. As usual, we will meet at noon in CGIS Knafel Room 354 and lunch will be provided. See you all there! -- Dana Higgins *Title:* *Effects of Mentors and Advisors on Major Choice: A Naturally Re-Randomized Experiment and a Subclassified Observational Study* *Co-authored with Kelly Kung (Boston University)* *Abstract:* We examine the effects of a peer mentor’s major and faculty advisor’s department on a student’s choice of major at a liberal arts women’s college. In particular, we study whether assignment to a peer mentor or faculty advisor from STEM v. non-STEM fields during the first year of college influences students’ choice to major in STEM v. non-STEM. Our approach to the mentoring component illustrates a novel application of rerandomization techniques to a natural experiment. The advising component is an observational study designed for causal inference via subclassification. Students’ STEM v. non-STEM choices did not appear to be affected by the STEM status of first year peer mentors or faculty advisors at this college.