I work for a public policy research group as my day job, though as a community organizer and not a researcher. I work with the policy team to design outreach to inform the public. This means I have to be very research literate and able to design outreach programs to explain this rather wonky stuff to college students. I have also done research at the Library of Congress and the NYPL Berg Collection and served as a fact checker on a Jonathan Franzen novel (which I never read because I lowkey find him insufferable).
I know SPSS and statistical methods which we can use to test whether our claims are really supported by the data or are just random. I have a background in psych experiment designs, but this translates well to archival research as well. I can use Excel/csv to organize data and generate graphics.
As part of my background in statistics, I am skilled at designing projects so that we can ensure the data we are using actually illustrates what we are claiming. Also, I am very sensitive to arguments and can spot problems in logic. I am good at asking the right questions.
I want to learn how to:
-work with large datasets through programming
-use Python in some way
-use code for archival research