eJournal Entry 8

The Experience

The journey of looking for an external adviser has officially ended. After almost 3 weeks of finding a UPOU Faculty of Education (FEd) gatekeeper, 3 attempts (2 unreplied and retracted; 1 rejection) later, my partnership with my statistician advisor has been promoted to official gatekeeper/external adviser. I met with my external adviser on March 28 (See Attachment B.3.1) to officially inform them of the setup and update them on what has happened the last few days since our partnership was on hold, granted by the EDS199 FIC. Luckily, they still agreed to push through. I am set to meet with them again on their next available day to officially inform them of specific gatekeeper responsibilities.

Aside from the adviser approval, I also completed my Gantt chart and submitted the predicted tasks and days. One of the many things I've learned in my research journey so far is that change truly is constant. No matter how far ahead you plan, things won't always go the way you want them to! Last March 27, I met up with my BES classmates (See Attachment D.2.3) for a different agenda but we ended up catching up on our research projects. I met another who is also doing research! I was able to evaluate my progress based on their personal SP experiences.

Looking Forward

Despite many downs in the last month, it's refreshing to accomplish something and to still feel the "fire" within me to pursue my research. In the next few weeks, as midterm fast approaches, I plan to start working on my research tools since they are critical and organize my RRL and other preceding parts of my proposal.