The confused researcher

It sure feels strange to know that it's been a year already since I sat for Finals and began worrying away over my future. What do you know, I thought my student days were over, but in the end, I ended up staying at school for another year, no doubt trying to put off entering the big bad world for another year.

It's summer again, and what does it have in store for me? Well, not a long holiday, that's for sure! I am in the process of starting to write a thesis and so I only finish in September. I have to say, being a first-time researcher, it's been fairly intimidating so far. All this talk of "paradigms" and "methods", and trying to figure out which one is best suited for your purposes! And I can foresee the literature review getting out of hand if I'm not careful. Any experienced social science researchers out there want to offer any useful tips?

And this time, I probably can't put off entering the big bad world any longer. I will be job-hunting, which is probably my one biggest worry. God has been good, I've just gotten a work placement at the beginning of July with a medium-sized publisher, and am looking forward to it. Hopefully I will be able to find something more permanent!

And hopefully in between get some summer reading done. To be fair, I've actually had a lot of free time this year to read, and I doubt I will ever get that amount of time ever again!