PHILADELPHIA — Life is literally a classroom — at least if your name is Taylor Swift.
The career of the megawatt pop star — whose dad is a Blue Hen — has inspired an eight-part economics workshop at the University of Delaware titled “Data Enchanted: Transforming Numbers Into Knowledge.” (Yes, that’s a song pun. Good eye.)
Taught by longtime Swiftie and assistant economics professor Kathryn Bender, the not-for-credit workshop uses Swift’s Spotify streaming data and a sizable number of Easter eggs to teach the basics of data visualization. Those who complete the workshop will receive a data analytics certificate, said Bender.
Bender’s course is one of several popping up at colleges and universities across the United States that examine Swift through a scholarly lens. You can compare her songwriting to the works of revered poets at Harvard or use her lyrics to understand youth psychology at Arizona State University, but “Data Enchanted” is among the first to study Swift quantitatively.
The angle makes sense: Swift became a billionaire as her international “Eras Tour” has boosted local economies still recovering from the pandemic. It’s the first tour to gross over $1 billion, and Swift has continued to break box office and streaming records.
Bender said she hopes the workshop will get more women interested in economics at the University of Delaware, where only 25% of economics majors identify as women, under the national average of 33% for large research universities.
Swift makes teaching “really easy. She has this universal appeal, especially among this segment of the population that’s underrepresented in economics,” said Bender. “A lot of women might think coding or econ isn’t for them and this says, ‘Hey, you can do this too.’”
Bender applied for an University of Delaware Paul J. Rickards, Jr. Teaching Innovation Grant to fund the workshop after noticing students in her econometrics class struggled to organize and interpret large data sets. To pregame the classes — which began in the fall and will wrap up at the end of the spring 2024 semester — Bender organized friendship bracelet-making sessions so students could meet one another and other economics faculty.
From there, Bender and a group of eight student teaching assistants switch off to lead lessons. The first assignment? Using Spotify data to determine if songs dubbed “Taylor’s Version” — or those Swift rerecorded to reclaim her masters — are more popular than the originals. (Spoiler alert: They are. )
So far, Bender’s workshop is wildly popular: Sixty-eight students applied for a seat, she said, and they had to cap the capacity at 64. Women outnumber men in the sessions 3-1.
Most, however, wouldn’t necessarily identify as Swifties.
Emma Aucker, a sophomore majoring in environmental and resource economics, identifies as a mere “Taylor Swift appreciator.” Aucker is taking the workshop to gain data analytics skills, she said, but the class “made her feel like a Swiftie.”
“It’s a lot more interesting than analyzing the GDP of Scandinavia or something,” said Aucker, who noted she’s one of only two women among the 15 students in her major. The predominantly female environment, Aucker said, made it a “more comfortable space to be vulnerable about the fact that you don’t know something.”
Junior international business major Katarina Rodriguez Thomas agreed. The workshop has made her more confident applying for economics internships or research positions.
Using Swift’s data made things “easier to understand,” said Rodriguez Thomas. “To be a part of a project with so many other girls trying to get ahead … also made it easier to ask questions. I had confirmation that everyone was also learning something new.”
Learning about Swift was just a bonus, Aucker and Rodriguez Thomas said. Both would take other Swift-themed classes if they came up.
“Getting to sit down and visualize the data made me realize the impact [Swift] has had on the music industry,” said Rodriguez Thomas. “The more I learn about her, the cooler she sounds.”
Bender hopes to turn “Data Enchanted” into a for-credit semester-long course, and, eventually, a data analytics lecture series named after different Swift songs and albums.
“‘Data Enchanted’ is the introduction — it’s meeting something for the first time,” Bender said. “Something like ‘Data Bejeweled’ could be a deeper dive into some of these skills.”
“I know Taylor isn’t necessarily out writing songs like ‘This is going to get more girls into STEM.’ But that’s essentially what we’re using them for, right?” said Bender. “If she reads this, I hope she thinks our class is part of her empire too.”
