PIRE II

I cannot believe this week was the last and final week of PIRE. I cannot believe that in a few short hours I will be on a plane headed back to State College. I am eternally grateful for the experience to not only continue with my passion of research, but continue it...

Final week in nijmegen , feeling both happy and sad about it but overall very grateful. We had our last few participants this week , and even though we didn't meet the amount of participants we wanted, we still got more than what we expected with the year ending. We...

Where has the time gone? I cannot believe that week 7 in Nijmegen has already come to a close! We kicked off this week with a meeting with our advisor, who assembled a plan for our final week here at Radboud. We then attended a lab presentation by one of the...

I simply cannot believe that we are at the beginning of our very last week in Nijmegen. I cannot even begin to fathom how this went by so fast. This week we continued to work on changing the audio files, specifically the accappella files to make them sound more...

I can’t believe it’s already been 6 weeks in this beautiful city! This week was quite wonderful, particularly because my mom came to visit! I got to show her some of my favorite spots in the Netherlands, and we took a weekend trip to Amsterdam. Additionally, my...

Week 5 was such a wonderful week! My apologies if this submission is going up at the same time as my Week 6 submission, for some reason my blog post for week 5 didn’t upload successfully. This week was such a wonderful week for both our personal study, as well as the...

I cannot believe we're almost to the finals days of our PIRE experience, feeling very very bittersweet ! This last week I felt a little bit homesick , since everyone parents came to visit so every one of the girls spent a lot of time with their family members. On...

I cannot believe we've been here for a whole month but it's so sad to think about the fact that were just a few weeks into leaving. Like I said in my previous blog, participants are starting to show less often due to the fact that finals are going on and it's the end...

This week was slow with participants because students are starting their final exams 🙁  But we have used this week to recharge energies since homesickness is getting to us. On Thursday we did not have any participants so we decided to take the day for ourselves. As...

We presented our presentation this Monday in front of a team of researchers at Roadbed. We included much research on past studies that were similar to what we wanted to prove, and then discussed procedures, methods, and our research questions. All the feedback we...

This week was preparing for a lot for our presentation. Not only did we have lots of preparations for our presentation on Monday about our project, but we also had to further work make different audio files using a different software. For the audio files, we needed...

This week started off strong with a lot of participants back to back! It has been a great experience to test participants and meet so many lovely people.  This week we had our presentation at the Multilingualism meeting. All of the professors are so intelligent and...

I cannot believe I am already halfway through this amazing PIRE experience already! This week, I received excellent instruction regarding Praat scripts. This was something I was skeptical of attempting, for it is a bit of a confusing process that I'd never seen...

The weekend was amazing! Me and the girls went to Amsterdam (finally!!) and we had some amazing food, amazing time exploring the city and even did touristy stuff. But obviously it was short time lived, because on Monday at lunch me and Ceci gave a presentation about...

I can hardly believe that I have already been in the Netherlands for one month. I feel as though this experience is flying by! This week we started working with a number of audio files. Altering aspects of them to fit better within our study like the start playing of...

I simply cannot believe how fast the time is flying here in beautiful Nijmegen! We have made excellent strides in our LRM closed-set study. In addition to this, we are currently assisting Dr. Brouwer with her new study regarding the manipulation of music factors to...

This week has been a very productive week for our research. We are finally in the last couple steps of preparing our initial study to be piloted. This is exciting because we will be working with both Dutch bilinguals as well as English monolinguals. Our next step is...

Happy to say that me and Ceci have done 8 participants this one week, it's been hectic but exciting. We've been testing at Radboud starting from 10:30am and our last participants ending at 5:30pm - so yes, we've been exhausted these past few days. We're spending a lot...

We finally started testing participants! We were fully booked this week with participants back to back. It has been so fun and a week full of activity. We also explored new buildings on campus, and in between participants we took a walk on this big green area on...

After a long weekend because of the Pentecost here in Amsterdam and university was closed me, Ceci and Madison decided to jut walk around the town and explore new restaurants around the area. W e were supposed to have a meeting with our advisor Sussane but she...

This week was kind of slow regarding our project because we were still fixing paperwork and we were attending meetings for lab protocol to start the testing. Also, we explored campus and made friends with some locals. The campus is so beautiful and full of plants and...

This week I was able to continue working on the finishing steps on Labvanced to begin starting piloting our data soon. I have always claimed to never be good with technology, but it has been fulfilling learning how to use this software to produce my ideal study....

This week, my research partner and I made excellent strides in the development of our research project! Getting acclimated to a new location is always slightly difficult for me, for change poses many unique obstacles. Though this is true, my love for Nijmegen (as well...

The overnight trip from Philadelphia to Amsterdam was long but smooth. We arrived at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and got on the first train to Nijmegen. I am so impressed with Nijmegen. It is a beautiful old city with a young atmosphere. Nijmegen Centrum is a...

We started the week attending the lab, visiting campus, and meeting Susanne Brouwer, our research advisor. She is very welcoming and she made our first day on campus a wonderful experience. We went over everything we were going to do and we met Dali Chirino, Susanne’s...

My first week In Nijmegen, Netherlands was fantastic. The trip from State College, PA all the way to Amsterdam, Netherlands ran very smoothly no trouble at any time. During the journey me and my partner Ceci were talking on how nervous but at the same time excited we...

Second week here and we started going into the office already ! We met with the our head researcher Susanne and with her assistant Dali that will help me and Ceci set some things up since he knows the protocol better than us. We were given an office which is amazing ,...

My first week in Nijmegen has been nothing short of exceptional. I have gotten the amazing opportunity to meet new people, experience a culture outside of my comfort zone, and focus on my research and bettering myself as a researcher and world traveler. I have never...

The first week of travel is always filled with copious emotions. The combination of excitement, nerves, and adventurous spirit cultivates a unique feeling as you immerse yourself in any new culture. I've been graced with many fantastic opportunities in my lifetime,...

After eight incredible weeks in Nijmegen, I have now settled back into my home in the States. While it's wonderful to be reunited with family, friends, and my dogs, I can't help but admit that I already miss the life I had in Nijmegen. Our final week of running...

The last week of Nijmegen went by quicker than the past 7 weeks. I can't believe how much time has passed. It feels like yesterday when I was preparing for the trip. We ran our final pair of participants last Thursday and returned our key to our temporary office on...

After long days of travel and trying to get over the jet-lag, I can officially say that I am back home and settled in after my trip. As good as it feels to be home, I must say that I really do miss Nijmegen. I had an incredible experience during my time abroad, and I...

I can't believe I am only here for one more week! Last week was a little slow with participants, but this week we had three pairs! Everything went smoothly and we have reached our (new) goal of participants. We wrapped up our last pair today, and are going to campus...

With only one more week left of this program, my research partners who arrived earlier have settled back into their homes. This past week we had three pairs of participants come in for our study! Most of the study ran smoothly. The most recent run was a bit rough. We...

I had a great sixth week in Nijmegen and the time is flying by! This week, we ran several pairs of participants and are getting closer and closer to our goal. We also have two pairs planned for next week, which will bring us to our goal. After running our participants...

It is already week 6. Every week, I feel as though the days go by quickly. I wake up and then it's already dark outside. Now, the past 6 weeks went by in a blink of an eye. We ran our 10th pair yesterday. We had a final group lunch with our supervisor as well....

My weeks here are starting to wind down, but the adventures continue! We were able to run a bunch of participants last week, and as of right now we have enough sign-ups to get us to 31 participants! We are hoping to get a few more if we can as the week goes on, but at...

I cannot believe the fifth week in Nijmegen has already passed! This week, we had a relatively busy week with running participants. We were worried that people would not sign up due to finals week, but we have had great luck with participation that is bringing us...

Today marks the end of week 5 in Nijmegen. It's crazy how quickly time has been passing. I feel as though it was only yesterday since I wrote the last blog. During this past week, we continued to run our experiment. Although we didn't have many pairs come in before,...

I cannot believe that I am already six weeks into this trip; time really does fly! Research has been going great. We had five participants last week and we have six more scheduled for this week. We are hoping to get six more participants total between the rest of this...

I can't believe I am already halfway through my PIRE experience! I have had an amazing time in the Netherlands and I am not quite ready to go home yet! Because of finals week at Radboud, we were not able to run any participants this week. We have 3 pairs scheduled for...

Already halfway into this program, my research partners and I ran a total of 6 pairs of participants. Recruitment has been difficult, but we have three more pairs coming in next week. When we don't have participants, we transcribe the data we collected and try to...

As classes are coming to a close at our University, volunteers for our study increased this week! We had five participants for this past week, and no no-shows! However, now the students are going into their finals weeks, so I am not sure how willing they will be to...

These past few weeks have been pretty busy, but in a great way! We have had a lot more participants sign up for these upcoming weeks, so we are looking forward to keep running sessions. Also, ever since that first week, there have been no issues regarding technical...

The 3rd week flew by real fast. It feels like only yesterday when I wrote the last blog post. Although it took some time, I feel as though I have integrated myself into the Dutch lifestyle (at least in terms of walking around and being used to the sites). The travel...

I had a great third week here in Nijmegen! I have been busy transcribing the files we have gathered so far and going around campus to recruit potential participants. So far, data collection has been a little slow with finals week coming up, but we have some pairs...

I have had an amazing and exciting second week in Nijmegen! After running participants scattered throughout the week, we have been able to start transcribing the recordings. There are a lot of factors to pay attention to (like code-switching and filled pauses), but...

Today marks the 2nd week of our PIRE trip. It feels like it's been longer than two considering how quickly time passes. With the other researchers, we continued to hand out fliers and promote our study. After we passed some fliers, we worked on managing the data we...

First off, I cannot believe that 3 weeks have already gone by! My trip so far has been such an incredible experience, and I cannot wait to see what the rest of my weeks here have in store. This past week was pretty busy as we have been getting a good amount of...

We just finished our first great week in Nijmegen! After some flight complications due to delays and missed flights, we arrived in Nijmegen last Wednesday. After catching our breath and settling into our Airbnb, we met up with the other researchers who arrived a week...