Organizational Behavior Research at Wharton School of Business -Work Lesson

Summer 2018, I was in Philidelphia, PA, at the Wharton School of Business at Univerisity of Pennsylvania. I obtained this internship through the Summer Early Identification Research Program as a research assistant to Dr. Stephanie Creary. She does organizational behavior research. I was paired with her because, in my interest application, I wrote an essay about how I wanted to explore Industrial/Organizational Psychology. I was on her team accomplishing the roles she delegated to me. Her study was qualitative research, which is different from Spelman's quantitative research classes. The most rewarding aspect of the research was witnessing how my work impacted her research. She had multiple research teams, but I worked on her Army study. I was the only undergraduate working for her and the sole person in the whole program researching the business school. I was working alongside a graduate student, Sashi, on this project. My sole purpose was to read through the interviews she had with high ranking individuals in the army, and code instances and examples of them helping subordinates. The smaller task of mine was to read through reading journals related to studies similar and to present what I found in the reading meetings we had twice a month. I spent most of my time reading through the interviews, coding, and then completing a thorough analysis.

Being the youngest, I had to be sharp yet respectful in this space. I thought through all of my answers carefully because I did not want to sound like the lost undergraduate. Especially being one of the two black women in the room (the other being my research professor). I also over-communicated. Every Thursday, she wanted updates on what I did in the week to make sure everything was on schedule. A complicated experience was navigating the codes. Learning how to code for qualitative data was hard. Mainly because I never did it, and it was Dr.Creary's research. Thus there were long nights where Sashi and I would go over each code that I already wrote to ensure that It was up to par of what Dr.Creary wanted.

This experience taught me to take it to the head and never to the heart. In this experience, I got more constructive feedback than I received praise. But I never let that discourage me, nor did I feel less than and not deserving of the opportunity.

Time management was a huge lesson I learned from this experience. My research mentor was always traveling. Thus I did my work whenever and wherever I wanted to. So utilizing google calendar and scheduling my time was a lesson that I still use now in my life. I organize all schedules color-coding Google calendars. Also, having autonomy, I learned discipline completing work no matter the circumstances.

This experience shapes the expectations I have from any workplace. I know that I can work on my time and meet deadlines. Thus I do not need/want a micromanaged work environment. This work is relevant to the 'big picture' because it taught me the skills that I already have, such as organization, planning, and taught me that I like helping with research, but I do not want to spearhead research for the rest of my life. I did see the impact of my work. Because of me, Dr.Creary was able to get further in her research and closer to completing it. I was able to do the things she was not able to do, due to the other research projects she had going on simultaneously. Research is a great opportunity and that everybody should get research experience while in school.