The work begins!

Today is my first official day of doing work on my project for Dr. Calderon. I've been given access to all of his data bases containing his research that he's been conducting since 2010, with instruction to write up a report using those statistics and any articles on whatever topic I am interested in. Dr. Calderon and I discussed my interests last week and decided that I would do my report on the differences that men and women face before, during and after migration from Mexico to the United States, including some comparisons between Mexico and the United States regarding standard of living, salary, occupation, etc. I've never used a program like the one that Dr. Calderon and Andres work with, but Andres is there the whole time to help me with anything I don't understand and to provide invaluable input and guidance. I've never done research like this before, so it's a huge learning curve for me, but Dr. Calderon and Andres understand that I am not a professional researcher and are happy to work with me and give me the benefit of the doubt. It's so nice to be working on something and I think that after all of the challenges, this is going to be a great and valuable experience and I can't wait to continue working on it!