Reflecting on this competency is somewhat challenging because, based on what I do on campus, I don’t often find myself in contact with quantitative or qualitative data, especially outside of a class assignment setting where I would need to manipulate and convey it to a large audience of people. The best examples I can come up with, regarding quantitative inquiry and analysis, would probably come from my Scientific Computing in Astronomy course. In that course, I have manipulated and expressed data from large databases regarding stars and galaxies we have observed and their properties. I think one of the most valuable things I have learned, in addition to how to write in Python, is the qualities that make a good visualization of data (whether that be a graph or a histogram). Specifically, in one assignment, we had to make two graphs that represented the correlation between two qualities of the stars in the database. For one graph, we had to purposefully make it as horrible of a representation as possible; for this one did not label my axes, made the points too large so that they overlapped and some of the data was lost a terrible, did not center the points so that they were all confusingly clumped in one corner, and generally gave it a hideously eye-straining color scheme. In the good graph, I corrected all these problems, and I found that the juxtaposition between the two of them really interestingly showcased how the viewer’s conception of the correlation can be so skewed by the presentation of the data.
As for qualitative inquiry and analysis, the one example that stands out most to me comes from the alumni interviews I did for this course. I interviewed two healthcare industry professionals, one of whom is a PA, the other of whom was a nurse (she no longer practices), in order to get a sense of what I should consider with regard to my future plans of working in healthcare. From my discussions with these two women, I came to the conclusion that if I pursue an MD, I will simply have less freedom and free time in my 20s and 30s. And while the return on investment is really good, that is definitely something I should keep in mind, especially if I also want to have children one day. However, I also learned from the two of them that I would have the most freedom and autonomy within my workplace as a doctor. While both RNs and PAs work just as much (if not more) directly with patients–the most enticing part of medicine for me–they do not have the same responsibilities or privileges. Even PAs, who can do almost everything a doctor does, always have to be working under an MD or DO. So, no matter what, I concluded that working in the medical field is a give and take with regard to freedom.
Also, I would say that this assignment itself is a great showcase of my ability to convey ideas I have gotten from quantitative and qualitative inquiry and analysis!
