I’ve chosen to walk you through a typical day of work using photos, as I’m not sure any particular aspect of my day would make an interesting video. My research is independent and portable, and basically just involves me sitting alone somewhere researching and coding on my laptop.
My day almost always begins at my kitchen table. I try to get set up by 8:30.
I’m not a morning person, so I like to start my day at home and have a cup of tea, and charge my laptop for later when I leave. I love to listen to music all day as I work. I’ve also gotten really into the podcast, Serial, recently. I’m usually doing data analysis in the statistical program, R. This is what I spend much of my day looking at:
I tend to work at home until I’ve hit a point where I can’t do much more without out help. I then prepare a list of all my questions so I don’t forget anything. My mentor is getting surgery so I can only communicate with her via phone and email, and I’m new to R, so I walk to the lovely CSCAR (Consulting for Statistics, Computing, and Analytics Research) in Rackham.
I’ve now had two official appointments at CSCAR, but they’re are a bit hard to get and CSCAR also has walk-in hours from 9-5, and so I just go to those.
I’ve been running into Sam here, which is always nice. Once I’ve had my questions answered, I like to sit outside somewhere. I could go to my research mentor’s lab, but people aren’t always there. Also I don’t have to be there, and I want to appreciate the nice weather while I can; Michigan winter was long and it was always too hot to sit outside in my hometown in the summer. My roommate recently introduced me to the League Courtyard, so I’ve been going there a lot:
Sometimes I’m also lucky enough to have a friend come sit with me as I work. I usually work in my new, outdoor location until around 5:30. Then I save everything, log my hours, and mentally plan what I want to get done the next day!