Reflections from Ismail Youssou

What led me to work on the Coping with COVID-19 research project was my passion for and experience in computer science, as well as my curiosity as to what academic research was like.

I was assigned to a group tasked with formatting the thousands of inputs by participants into data we could easily present through various software. The task required learning a lot of new programming skills, as well as consistent communication between my group members, Guanglei, and Eos. Once that was done, I essentially bounced around within the group, helping the extended group complete various tasks, such as providing comments on the interview transcripts and providing resources and feedback.

I learned that the process of research is incredibly flexible. Before joining this project, I had imagined that researching would be very cookie-cutter, that there were a strict number of steps and strict regulations, and that at the end of the process there would be one complete research document. While we certainly complied with regulations, pretty much everything else was up for discussion. A lot of the group branched off and used the data to answer their own unique guiding questions, and even when two people had the same question, they produced very different results. I learned that research is more of a process in and of itself, and that it is often more difficult to find a good place to conclude than to begin.

Overall, I am incredibly grateful that I was a part of this project, and that I was able to work with and learn from some of the most talented and dedicated people I have ever met. Eos and Guanglei are amazing mentors, and even more amazing at what they do.