The Armchair Economist’s Apprenticeship is a weekly series documenting my progress throughout my journey in the apprenticeship module of the Praxis program. I’m currently a market research analyst apprentice for a non-profit. At the request of my boss, I’ll be keeping the details of my employer under wraps for the time being.
Week 8: June 22, 2020 – June 26, 2020
What I’m Learning:
One cool thing I learned at work last week:
I learned about consent forms with professional market researcher, Isabel Aneyba.
One of the things I forgot to consider was the privacy concerns of the study subjects. I asked two participants to be in the study but they were hesitant because they were worried about where their information and answers would go since the interview was to be recorded. In particular, the participants were concerned about me selling their data or using their answers against them for political gain.
My reasons for recording the participants was to accurately quote them in the conclusion of my study. I needed a way to remember the responses of all ten participants. Taking notes is one solution but there are times when I’m not able to write fast enough.
I learned from Ms. Isabel how to write a consent form. She suggested to make it personable instead of dry and stiff like those medical forms you fill out at the doctor’s office.
Ms. Isabel suggested incentives like gift cards but I was instructed by my coworker to not give any since we can’t spare the money. I’ll discuss with the team about what incentives we can give to participants, perhaps a free course.
One cool thing I learned outside of work last week:
A friend on Facebook shared this YouTube beauty guru’s heartbreaking struggles with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) that caused her infertility.
RawBeautyKristi, the YouTuber below, struggled with fertility treatments for 15 years and just last week she miraculously became pregnant. In her video, she described how the timing of everything leading up to her pregnancy was too perfect to simply be a mere coincidence; she and her husband just happened to be in the right mood and her body created the right pregnancy environment, and it’s interesting to note that the house they were about to buy, but didn’t, was on a cliff with no fences around to prevent a child from falling.
So how did she become pregnant through natural means? She suspects it might be a low carb diet like keto. She wanted to lose weight through keto and then started getting regular periods. If you know anything about PCOS you know how periods can be unpredictable or altogether nonexistent.
Here’s another interesting observation; RawBeautyKristi tried a different diet years ago and lost more weight but it wasn’t low carb and her periods were still irregular.
Keto is certainly not for everyone and in my opinion it’s overhyped. However, there are plenty of positive outcomes for people who have gone on the diet and have changed their lives for the better. If you struggle with weight loss or infertility you might want to try keto especially if you have nothing to lose.
Speaking of diets, is beef fizz, keto approved? 😳
I don’t know if I should be disgusted or concerned that someone thought it would be a great idea to turn this into a recipe. I wonder how Gordon Ramsay would react to this abomination.
What I’m Creating:
One example of how I created value at work last week:
I researched and added more active learning resources on a shared document with my coworker who is mostly out of the loop with the best learning practices. Additionally, I created a research study framework (loosely similar to the scientific method) for my entrepreneurship market research.
What project I’m currently working on at my BP:
I’m currently working on studying the motivations and needs of both experienced and inexperienced entrepreneurs. You can look at my research document here.
What I’m doing to become a better version of myself overall:
I’m being proactive and anticipating future potential problems by asking questions about the safety and security of my coworker’s future platform.