GRA Skills Set
Name –
Career Goals –
Policy Areas of Interest –
Past Research Experience -
Data and Statistics Skills (please specify any skills specifically related to STATA) -
Computer Skills – level of familiarity or examples of use?
Literature Reviews, Academic Search Tools or Legal Analysis
Writing Skills in English
Qualitative Methods
Languages - fluency level for each?
GRA Skills Set
Sample 1
Career Goals–After receiving my MPA, I hope to work in a nonprofit working with children or families. In the longer term, I hope to be the director of a nonprofit that helps children, such as a Boys and Girls Club.
Policy Areas of Interest –Environmental Policy, especially global warming, and Science Policy
Past ResearchExperience -
- Senior Honors Thesis – “The Prevalence of teenage drinking” – I used data from the NIH to explore the factors related to binge drinking of alcohol by teenagers.
- Honors Class Project – working with a group of three students, we examined the arguments for and against capital punishment in the US
- Student Assistant on a Research Project – I worked for Professor Smart’s project on education finance. My main tasks included data collection, entry, and data verification.
- Intern Research Project – In my internship at a city agency, I helped develop a survey of citizens on their preferences for a new bike trail.
- Work Experience – I was a computer programmer for the Mega company.
Data and Statistics Skills -
- Data or Statistics Classes – topics covered and type of projects?
- Used the SPSS/STATA statistics package in my political science methods class
- Used Excel and Access daily in my job at the Mega state agency
- In my internship at Habitat for Humanity, I had to use accounting skills for xx purpose
- Familiarity with large database such as NES, GSS, SIPP, CPS
- Survey experience, such as using CATI phone systems or Survey Monkey on the web
Computer Skills –level of familiarity or examples of use?
- Microsoft Office programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, FrontPage, Outlook, Access
- Graphics or Design Software, such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign
- Web design or web search skills, such as PERL, PYTHON, ASP, etc.
- GIS or other spatial analysis
Literature Reviews, Academic Search Tools or Legal Analysis
- Class work – be specific
- Student Assistant for faculty projects or in a center where I did ____
- SCOPUS, Web of Science, Google Academic Searches
- Legal analysis, terminology, use of Lexis-Nexis
Writing Skills in English
- Senior Project / Thesis / Capstone
- Contributed to reports, newsletters or public documents during internship or job
- Web content or blogs – give address if still publicly available
- News Reporting (print, radio, TV, Internet)
Qualitative Methods
- Focus Groups
- Structured Interviews
- Experimental Research
Languages –English (fluent), Spanish (conversational)
Sample 2
Career Goals – I am interested in program evaluation for public health agencies or a nonprofit.
Policy Areas of Interest – Health policy
Past Research
Senior Honors Thesis: Marketing for Small Nonprofits in South Dakota
For this project I conducted a literature review of marketing, nonprofits, and nonprofit marketing to get an understanding of what current practices and trends are. Once I felt confident with the information I gathered, I conducted three interviews – two with local nonprofit organizations, and one with a national office of one of the organizations. I asked about what their marketing tactics were and what obstacles they face. From the interviews, I was able to compare their techniques to those advocated by the literature to develop a set of recommendations for the two local nonprofits in South Dakota.
Honors Mini-Thesis: Freedom of Religion Clause in the First Amendment
To prepare honors students for their thesis, they are required to write a mini-thesis, at least 20 pages in length with at least 30 sources, pertaining to the interdisciplinary course. For my year, our topic focused around the concepts of law, justice and morality. My mini-thesis explored the freedom of religion clause – its historical roots, interpretations by the Supreme Court and instances and court cases where it became controversial in our society.
Data Skills
Political Science Research Methods: SPSS
In my political science research methods course, we were introduced to the SPSS program. Using data from research the professor conducted earlier in the year, I was able to run statistics on the data to interpret what his research found, which allowed us to look at the correlation and reliability of his study.
American Cancer Society: Media Tracking
As part of my internship I entered media hits from across South Dakota into an Access database. From this, we were able to draw up media reports for conferences and meetings at the regional level to determine where we were getting the most coverage, about which topics and how frequently.
Whittier Communications: Data Entry
This business was starting up in Sioux Falls after having success in Minnesota. Part of the business is an executive search. My part-time 2008 summer position was to input data in to ACT! by Sage. With this, employees were able to draw up reports of hospitals in a given area when people requested certain job locations or positions.
Sioux Empire United Way: Donation Comparison
As an intern for United Way this summer, I help plan for a WomenUnite! event, which gathers 600 women in the community to introduce the 2009 initiative. This is the fourth year hosting the event, and the director wanted to see if/how it was changing donations. I compared the data for the last three years to see where there were increases or decreases. While perhaps not scientific, we found that women who attended the event were more likely to continue donating to United Way, and many increased their donations. I also found the average increase and decrease amount for attendants.
Statistics
Intro to Statistics: College course
In the spring of my freshman year I took an introductory statistics course, for which I earned a B. It was my first look at statistics beyond the concepts of mean, median and mode.
Political Science Research Methods: SPSS
In addition to analyzing data presented in SPSS, we were able to run statistics in order to present charts and understand reliability and correlations for the research conducted in my research methods course. Our professor did not explain how to derive the numbers so much as he explained what they were used for in research and why they are important.
Computer Skills
-Microsoft Office programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, FrontPage, Outlook, some Access
-Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign
-WebCT and WebCM – Programs used by the University of South Dakota for webpage maintenance
-Operate both a Mac and a PC
Literature Reviews
Senior Honors Thesis: Marketing, Nonprofit, Nonprofit Marketing
To gain an understanding of marketing for nonprofits, I first wanted to understand the nonprofit sector and also the practice and evolution of marketing. When I began researching these two areas, I realized there was more specific research on nonprofit marketing, particularly cause-related marketing and social marketing. My final thesis had a literature broken down into the three components so readers would understand why I focused on what I did in my thesis.
Political Science Research Methods: SPSS
Part of the course requirement for the research methods course was a literature view. Citing at least 20 sources, my literature review focused on ballot issue elections. For the final project, combining the professor’s data analyzed in SPSS, I narrowed my literature review to focus on whether American citizens are supportive of ballot issue elections and how that affects outcome.
Writing Skills
News Reporting: Newspaper Writer and Editor
For all of my four years at the University of South Dakota, I wrote for our campus newspaper, The Volante. I wrote predominately news, with some feature stories. I progressed on staff to become news editor and then managing editor, so my focused switched to editing with reporters and designing pages. Through this work I have learned to become concise and deliver a message to an intended audience. For one of my summer internships I wrote news and feature stories under the editor of a daily newspaper in South Dakota, given me even more practical experience in presenting material in an unbiased, professional and simple manner.
English: Course Papers
As an English major, I tackled a variety of research papers analyzing literature throughout my undergraduate degree. Some courses include Creative Writing, Business Writing, Contemporary Fiction, Introduction to Literary Criticism and African American Literature. Most papers were 15 pages in length and explored themes in the works we were assigned in class. One of my papers for Contemporary Fiction compared the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder experienced by Holocaust victims with PTSD in Vietnam War soldiers through literature.
Qualitative Methods
Senior Honors Thesis: Interviews
The three interviews conducted for my thesis were vital to my project. Interview questions were formulated based on recurring themes and thoughts in the research. With help from my thesis director, questions were worded to be as unbiased as possible with room for open-ended answers. Once the interviews were conducted, notes and transcripts were typed and sent to thesis committee members to provide an additional insight as to where improvements could be made and where marketing tactics are working for the organization.
Languages
English (Native)