The next 4 months will be fully dedicated to my first scientific work – writing a bachelor thesis in environmental systems science with focus on geography.
This is a very important step for me, here is why. When I thought about my bachelor thesis, it was always about “which method(s) I want to use”. This got more and more precise in the last two years, through learning machinge learning and data science methods mostly by myself and investing a big amount of spare-time in this. So I was pretty sure it will be something around machine learning and/or network science, maybe also about understanding natural language through computers – cause it makes fun and offers a sense of exploration and innovation to me.
The topic itself is secondary, but still really important. It should deepen my knowledge in some of the areas I’m interested in, like geo-politics, urbanism, poverty, openness, knowledge creation, resources or migration. It should be nothing less than relevant, potentially emancipatory and contribute to a more just society.
And of course, to be able to make it open is an important point too. Plans are to share everything all along the way regularly. I will blog here frequently about my struggles, experiences and improvements and try to get a better understanding of how to open science. And as always, an own GitHub repository will be created of course.
Besides my scientific interests, the whole activity has an even more important point for my life as a whole. With my intense dedication to a bachelor thesis (4 months full time with the goal of a publication) I want to get a hands-on experience how the life of a researcher is nowadays and create something I can build upon in the future. At the end everything surrounds around the question: Do I want to live the life of an researcher in 2014? Until now, what I will do after finishing my study is still an open debate: research, working or changing my field of practice again totally.
And hopefully also my english will improve too. 😉
