Although my time with PIRE has been a bit of a different experience than the other Penn State students that were here in Nijmegen with me (due to the fact that I had already collected my data before coming), it has still been one of the most valuable and educational experiences of my life. In the past three weeks I have had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Pieter Muysken three different times to discuss my project and how I am conducting the analysis up to this point. It was very helpful for me to bounce ideas and get his incredible insight and suggestions as to how to go about the rest of my analysis. It was really nice to finally be able to meet him and talk about the work that I’ve done here so far during my time in Nijmegen.
To be honest, the amount of data that I have to work with at times can be overwhelming, especially as this is my first real experience with research and data analysis. I spend hours sitting here listening to recordings and making spreadsheets of the data. Luckily, I have moved on from some of the data in Palenquero, to other data in Spanish, which since I speak and understand Spanish it has been much easier for me to deal with. It’s really been cool to see how my participants responded in the different tasks and I’m getting excited to see what kind of final results I will come up with in the end.
This summer has been such an eye-opening experience, as I have gone from rural northern Colombia, to a beautiful city in the Netherlands, and was able to experience such different ways of life, distinct from each other, and distinct from my life at home. I have learned so much about the ins and outs of conducting field research, how to deal with and solve problems, and what it is like to take a bunch of raw data and start to turn it into something much more concise. I have also learned a lot more about the world, and about myself. I have meet some amazing people and made memories that will last a life time. As my time here is getting shorter every day, I look back at how much I have learned and I am so thankful to have gotten such an opportunity!