With every task assigned by my mentors, I am learning or working to perfect a new skill. I have learned how to most efficiently best utilize academic articles–reading them faster, becoming familiar with their structures, and knowing the databases available to me that can provide them to me. I think I have found myself struggling with best managing my time–especially when it comes to academic readings. Like any other skill, I have found practice and experience very helpful. There are strategies for combing through these types of readings, and my mentors have helped me find them. I have gained exposure with cross-cultural research as my mentor is working on a project with Iran. I am seeing first hand the great work and care that accompanies it–with language barriers and the obvious space between the two continents. With a task involving coding videos for word count, I have gained some exposure to different methods for gathering data. I have also been pushed to ask better questions. Working alongside very motivated and smart students, it is easy to get in a great flow. I am also in the beginning stages of diving into Twitter archives, looking for trends and origins (online dialogue) surrounding pronouns. I am unfamiliar with the platform used to comb through this data, but excited to overcome the challenges my lack of experience in tech-type-coding will bring me. As for my social identity, I find it something I cannot separate from my research-inquiries. As objective as I’d like to be, I understand that my experiences and limited (but growing) exposure to new points of view guide me. This isn’t a bad thing, but it is critical to know your biases and orientation within your research. My research sometimes makes identity a focus–how I identify and understand myself is intrinsically tied to the foot I place forward in my labs. All in all, the experience thus far has been so fruitful. I hope to keep the momentum going and finish strong as we work towards the symposium:)
