I work with two other research
assistants, Naila Rafique and Salimatou Cristal Ouedraogo, both Global Affairs
majors in the Honors Program and both seniors filled with a lot of knowledge
that help contribute to this project. The three of us are working as research
assistants for Dr. Jatinder Singh, a professor here at George Mason University
as well a knowledge scholar within this area. What we do is code projects from
the World Bank database and look for participation within development projects
in the sector of information technology and communication.
This semester was about
getting all of us to the same level of coding and being able to look at one
project and all of us coming up with the same results. I am happy to say this
has been completed and now we go on to the next level. We are starting the main
coding of all the World Bank Projects under our sector with certain conditions.
We code on a weekly basis and then reconvene in order to discuss our findings.
Our research doesn’t end this semester and is carrying on into the spring so
we’ll have a lot more results then.
This week we discovered
that some of our projects might have to be dismissed because they have missing
documents or have been cancelled so we need to work with these bumps in the
road. But I am glad to say that this week we have finished the “trial” session you
can say and will begin to code our main projects. We are all at the same level
and are ready to continue our projects.
I’m unsure of the
specifics of what I want to do in the future. I know I want to stay within the
Global Affairs sector, and my concentration, International Development
interests me immensely. I want to continue to learn about different cultures
and how they came to be about and continue to adapt and change. These projects
allow me to see a different side of certain countries and regions that wouldn’t
normally read about in a textbook. I am directly seeing the actions being taken
in these projects and observing the changes it has actually made within the
region.
