Shell Script to compare files, check current date and count

Hello - I have written the following basic shell script to count files, compare files and look for a particular strings in a file.

Problem 1: How do I define more than 1 file location?

#!/bin/bash
#this is a test script

FILES=$(ls /home/student/bin/dir1, home/student/bin/dir2)
FILES2=$(ls /home/student/bin/dir3, home/student/bin/dir4)
FINDPROXY=$(grep -E -i "login|Successfully" ORProxyTC`date '+%m%d%Y'`*.txt/$FILES)
FINDPOS=$(grep -E -i "carding|established" `date '+%m_%d_%Y'`*.txt/$FILES)
DIFF=$(diff /home/student/bin /home/student/bin/master | grep Only)
COUNT=$(FILECOUNT=$(find /home/student -type f -mtime -1 -print | wc -l)/$FILES2
)

STATE="The connection state for Proxy Servers is $(FINDPROXY)."
STATE2="The connection state for Position Servers is $(FINDPOS)."
STATE3="The Diff between current market data files and master is: $(DIFF)."
STATE4="The count of todays files for publishers is: $(COUNT)."

echo ${STATE}
echo ${STATE2}
echo ${STATE3}
echo ${STATE4}
echo "This check was performed on: $(date)"