10 reasons why a grad student should use R

Kevin Goulding is working on a Master’s degree in Applied Economics at Montana State University, and offers 10 reasons why grad students should choose R for statistical analyses, homework problems, and thesis research:

• R is free, and lets grad students escape the burdens of commercial license costs.
• R has really good online documentation; and the community is unparalleled.  
• The command-line interface is perfect for learning by doing. 
• R is on the cutting edge, and expanding rapidly.
• The R programming language is intuitive.  
• R creates stunning visuals. 
• R and LaTeX work together — seamlessly. 
• R is used by practitioners in a plethora of academic disciplines. 
• R makes you think.  
• There’s always more than one way to accomplish something. 

Kevin offers provides further details for each of these points in his blog post. Grad students can also expand their use of R with the additional features of Revolution R Enterprise free of charge.

The Tarzan: Why use R? A grad student’s 2 cents

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