Δ

Δ = delta = change

Over the past five years as a student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a single concept was stressed into my educational mindframe regarding research methods: quantitative data > qualitative data. If you are going to do research, you must collect data. If you collect data, you must collect quantitative data. The world might be subjective, but to engineers and scientists across the world, the only usable data is quantitative. Only quantitative data can verify hypotheses and support theories. Only quantitative data matters. So basically, qualitative data is useless, usable in certain situations, but overall useless. Even in the realm of psychology, where so much is abstract and relative, most of my research projects stressed quantitative data measured by behavioural responses: a test subject's answers to a survery on a 7-point likert scale, measuring the reaction time to give a response, counting the number of times an animal performed a specific action, etc.

What does this have to do with my Peace Corps experiece you ask? Well over the past few weeks, a number of people have come up to me and said, "I am so proud of what you are doing. It is going to be an incredibly life-changing experience and you are going to learn so much about the world. etc." Suddenly the inner engineer in me comes out and I start analyzing those statements. Life-changing. Hmm. A research question pops into my head: How much will my life change over the next 27 months? In all my readings over the past few years I haven't come across a formula or theorm to effectively answer this question. But research is all about taking things we already know and applying them to novel situations. So, what if I was to take a formula I already know and apply it to my situation.

I already know that change can be represented by the symbol Δ. To measure change you subtract the initial value from the final value. Assuming all things constant and the only change in my life between June 2008 and August 2010 is due to the Peace Corps, my life change can be measured by the following formula:

Δ (PC) = [Nikhil (f) - Nikhil (i)]; where:

Nikhil (i) = my life and how I see myself before the PC

Nikhil (f) = my life and how I see myself after the PC

So that formula resolves how I shall measure this change. Now the question arises, how do I measure who I am before the PC and who I am after the PC. Thanks to my amazing service advisor (and friend) Sarah, I came across this cool little reflection activity. Unfortunately the activity is not entirely quantitative, but I am okay with that since much of who I am is completely qualitative (so yea, I'm cheating). Therefore I will perform this activity now and perform it again when I get back and maybe after fiddling around with the formula, I can come up with a response to my original question so we can all know how much I have changed over this next 27 period of my life.

The activity:

Create a list of statements that describe who you are and how you see yourself in the world. Begin each statement with the phrase "I am/have...". This list can be as long or as short as you would like it to be and in no specific order.

I am Nikhil.

I am a citizen of the world.

I am a son, a brother, and a friend.

I am a graduate of Georgia Tech, a semi-proud YellowJacket and a hellava "non"-engineer.

I am bad with names.

I am a Delta Sig.

I am an idealist and wildly passionate about "saving the world", particularly health issues in the developing world.

I have a very loud sneeze.

I am 5'8, 165 lbs, black hair, brown eyes.

I am open-minded and will try most anything at least once.

I am socially liberal / economically conservative.

I am a realistic romantic.

I have low self-esteem.

I am a US Peace Corps Community Health & AIDS Prevention Volunteer in Togo, West Africa.

I am not very good at dealing with change; I crave stability (sometimes)...

I am an agnostic Hindu.

I have a hard time living in the moment; I'm always "looking forward to looking back" (or pre-nostalgia --> thanks Wilky).

I am a sponge; when I'm around other people, I tend to subconsciously pick up and mimic their personalities/quirks.

I am an XNFP.