Q&A Session with Dr. Joyce Chen on Development Economics

Zoom Reflection

8 April 2020, Zoom, 7-8pm

This event was not very relevant to my major/minors, but it taught me a lot about development economics. I did not have any prior knowledge about economics, let alone development economics, so it opened up my eyes to a whole other field. Because of this, it definitely changed my perspective on this topic. This related to the topic of International Affairs because her research takes place in another nation, and she talked about how she manages doing international research while living in the United States. I gained a lot of knowledge from this event, and it also sparked my interest in this topic. I really like how she gave us a rundown about her research; it really helped me to gain a greater understanding of what exactly is meant when talking about development economics. I found the questions in the Q&A session to be very interesting since I never would have thought of a lot of them due to my lack of knowledge on the subject. I really found it interesting to learn about how she sees development economics changing as time goes on and how she specifically manages conducting her research from Columbus. I also never really thought about the impact that COVID-19 has on the many different types of international research that was being conducted before it hit.

Thinking About Law School? Get Your Questions Answered with IA 4th Year Layla Khalid

Zoom Reflection

2 April 2020, Zoom, 7-8pm

This event was not incredibly relevant to me career-wise, but there was a lot of valuable information that was given during this. Personally, this was interesting because I have never done any research about the LSAT, and there was a lot to learn about that test. I originally started college planning on going to medical school, although that changed, so I got to see the similarities of the LSAT and the MCAT which I never gave much thought to before. There were also some helpful studying and grad school tips. She mentioned that it was helpful to take practice tests timed just like the LSAT and gave a lot of information about letters of recommendation and personal statements.

If I were to want to go into law, I would be really interested in the legal part of education and childcare. I have always loved working with children, so I think that that would be interesting for me. That legal profession would actually work well with my major and minor since I focus on education (major) and developmental psychology (minor). I decided not to think about law school mainly because I do not like arguing, I know that’s a stereotype, and I never could see myself being all that invested in all of the things that go into being a law student. If I did plan on going to law school, my career trajectory would definitely be more policy-oriented because I do have a little bit of interest when it comes to the policy side of law.

Summer Research Opportunities with IA 3rd Year Joselle Carrillo

Zoom Reflection

31 March 2020, Zoom, 7:30-8pm

This event was about Joselle’s experience with summer research and some tips that she has based off of that experience. She also gave us reasons why we should do undergraduate research and specifically summer research. Some of these reasons included allowing us to delve deeper into certain topics that we are interested in and also to build meaningful connections with faculty and students who are interested in the same topics. Doing research in the summer specifically is helpful for people who would like to dedicate more time to their research and to become more familiar with research methods before the academic year starts.

If I were to pursue undergraduate research, I would like to do research on developmental psychology, likely focused on adolescents. This is because I am majoring in middle child education and plan on minoring in developmental psychology. It would also be interesting if I could somehow link that with IA. I would go about starting the research project by first forming relationships with professors who teach about either (or both) of those subjects and have some knowledge about how to go about that kind of research. The potential challenges that I could face would first be how busy I will be due to changing into an education major, which is basically fully mapped out to take 4 years to complete. Another challenge for me, personally, would be my struggle that I have interacting with professors. I would also have the common issues as well such as funding. If I were able to use my focus and tie it into IA, that would be great because I am not too knowledgeable about the differences in adolescent development and education in other nations.