Jordan Ellenberg is expanding the impact of his service to the UW by hosting a first-year student course on writing and data. First-year Interest Groups (FIGs) are usually groups of 3 classes that are open to only incoming freshmen and are part of a theme. These students take these courses together as a cohort and build close connections, something sometimes difficult to do on a campus as large as ours.
In Jordan’s class, it’s all about teaching students the skills needed to write compelling stories that are based on the literal mountains of quantitative data being generated in every field of study. He wanted to call the course “Making Words Count,” and that double-edged pun likely comes closer to his intent. Instead, it morphed into “Welcome to Writing and Data”, which Ellenberg developed and debuted this semester. As the name suggests, it’s all about teaching students the skills needed to write compelling stories that are based on the literal mountains of quantitative data being generated in every field of study.