Thesisy Things

Apparently in Master's programs, they expect you to do a thesis, and as much as I've pretended to know what I'm going to do about that, I feel really unprepared. The farther along I get in this program, the larger the Cloud of Thesis Doom gets on the horizon, and I'm finally starting to solidify real plans for what I want to write about. Last year, I started out thinking I was going to focus on Hispanic immigrant women's holistic health, designing a series of classes for them to learn about healthcare, jobs, education, and childcare in the U.S.  Then I wanted to do more qualitative study on this demographic's healthcare perceptions...something like that. I don't think I really knew. 

At some point, I must have had a conversation with my advisor, because I switched directions to researching ESL. Not that I've been a teacher or know a whole lot about different teaching methods or anything, but I like languages. I thought it would be cool to see how learning ESL impacts people internally, whether it makes them feel more self-sufficient and empowered, whether it makes them more or less proud of their mother tongue and culture, how it affected family dynamics, things like that. I still think that's a cool idea, but after reading literature about it, I feel like there is already plenty of research out there, and I'm not sure I would have much to contribute. If I'm going to devote months of my time to something, I want it to count.

In the meantime, I've been doing this awesome internship, getting to know refugees and staff who really care about helping people. World Relief is a model NGO, responsible with resources, impacting local and global community, and genuinely caring for their clients. Part of my internship is finding a project to work on for the organization, either from a list of suggestions from staff or one of my own choosing. A month or so ago, I checked out the list, and there was a project to "Help develop a tool for caseworkers to measure outcomes," which sounded interesting. Another intern was also interested, so we had a meeting with our supervisor, who explained that while WR has to meet certain requirements stipulated by the U.S. government, there was not much in place for feedback from refugees. The caseworkers themselves filled out a sheet noting the level of refugee competencies, but that was about it. So we decided to come up with a way to incorporate the clients, refugees, into evaluation of World Relief's programs by developing a tool for refugee feedback about programs.

This kind of invitation to the client is pretty unusual in the NGO world. Most organizations have higher-ups who decide what is best for those they want to help, and they hardly ever ask their clients to participate in the decision-making process. For example, child-sponsorship agencies don't end up asking the kids how they liked they program after they graduate from it. Homeless shelters don't usually involve the homeless in designing programs. I think they should, at least to some extent. Giving voice to these groups allows them to be part of the solution to their own problems and empowers the marginalized.

So that's what I'm going to write my thesis on.