Week 2: Big Ben? What’s that?
Jokes aside, this week was all about getting to know more about the people at FrameWorks. At the beginning of this week, I met with the Executive Director (Kate) who spoke to me about her career journey and how she arrived at FrameWorks. I’m continually intrigued by people’s career journeys and especially career pivots; I think it helps me make sense of what I want to do with my life. Fun fact: Kate went to Queens for her Masters! I felt a little Canadian connection there. Second week and I’m definitely starting to feel less out of place.
Tamsyn, FrameWorks’ Director of Evidence, briefed me on my primary internship task: a literature review for their upcoming research project! Although I cannot disclose details, the project was broadly about political polarisation in the UK and surfacing the underlying reasons behind people’s political decisions. I was incredibly excited to begin working on this project – although I have a love-hate relationship with literature reviews, I’ve been wanting to study political decision-making (in any way and to any extent) for a long time now. I believe understanding politics is crucial in realizing one’s ability to make the world a better and more tolerable place.
Since I was not told to follow specific research methodology for the literature review, I focused on figuring out exactly what I wanted to study and how I was going to do it. Did I want to look at published articles? Newspapers? Before or after Brexit? What databases to use? What keywords? I loved having the creative liberty to map out exactly what I wanted to do.
The highlight of this week was definitely the interpretation meeting – this was my first look into FrameWorks’ research methodology. I was able to provide my views into the interpretation of interview responses for an ongoing FrameWorks project. Observing how researchers choose what to prioritize from a massive dataset and having the opportunity to question their decisions was an insightful and intellectually rigorous process for me. This meeting was also quite wholesome. The people at FrameWorks really enjoy their work and truly believe in its mission. You can see that from their care and approach.
Onto the next!
Hi! My name is Ronaish and I'm a third-year at the University of Toronto, studying Neurosceince & Philosophy. In Summer 1, I conducted a scoping review on the current state and future directions for palliative care in Pakistan. In Summer 2, I intered at FrameWorks UK - a research services organization based in London.
Besides research, my hobbies include parliamentary debate, trying new cuisines, occasionally binging shows and traveling! Feel free to reach out at ronaish.arshad@mail.utoronto.ca for a chat or if you have any questions about my research.
