Visiting Research Fellowship to University of Luxembourg
Having recently completed my PhD, I thoroughly recommend other freshly-minted doctors consider doing a visiting research fellowship at another university. It was a great experience learning about the different methodologies historians and anthropologists use to conduct research. I also learned that each discipline has its common challenges. For example, in social science, the sampling and data analysis can be challenging since we toe-the-line between scientific methods and humanistic (i.e., subjective/interpretive) approaches. In computer science, the code can break and take weeks to fix; while in history, archives may be inaccessible or copyrighted preventing them from being used.
In addition to the academic-related learnings, I enjoyed seeing the dynamics of a different research lab in a very international country, which has many cross-border works who often speak at least three to four languages. Different labs have different dynamics, but what is common is that they are welcoming places where new friends can be easily made. I hope I am fortunate enough to always be part of a research lab or group because I believe that it completely changes the scholarship produced in such a positive way.
Read more about the project I worked on during my visit in the short blog I wrote for the University of Luxembourg’s Centre for Contemporary and Digital History website.