On 23rd March, Manchester Q-Step centre held a Data Fellows day, celebrating the success of students who completed an external data fellowship (an internship) in the summer 2022. The event featured contributions from three LEL students: Hannah Hutt (Linguistics and Sociology), Leila Peltier (Chinese and Linguistics) and Leah Scott (English Language). They all presented posters summarising the research they conducted during their internship, and scooped two out of three poster awards selected from over forty presenters across the University. Hannah won the award for the best poster, while Leila was one of the runner ups. Hannah and Leah have kindly written to Manchet, describing their fellowships, as featured below. You can find out more about Leila’s fellowship from the poster in the featured photo for this post.
If you’re a Level 2 student of either Linguistics or English Language (including joint honours), and you’re feeling inspired by their experience, you’re in luck! The programme is currently recruiting Data Fellows for 2023 – you can submit your application until 19th April, 2023. More information and advice on how to apply is here.
Hannah Hutt on her internship at IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) North:
During the Summer of 2022, I completed my Q-Step Data Fellowship at IPPR North. This is a not-for-profit think tank who develop bold, progressive ideas to empower England’s regions so that everyone has the opportunity to live a good life. My time at IPPR North consisted of me collecting large datasets from the ONS, Eurostat and the OECD, and analysing it in Excel for their annual State of the North report. Through data analysis I discovered stark inequalities in prosperity, productivity, investment, employment, incomes, emissions, and education between the North and the rest of the UK, as well as internationally. If the North were a country, it would be second-to-last in investment in the OECD. The report presented case studies of countries which have successfully levelled up, providing lessons for those in government on how they can improve the North, because after all, regional prosperity is national prosperity! The report has now been published and has gained a mass amount of media attention. I never thought I would have co-authored a report by the end of my second year of university! Before I began my data fellowship, I did not know what I wanted to do after graduation, but I now know that I want to work in social research, making a difference in matters that I am passionate about. I gained valuable data analysis and research skills, as well as gaining friendships with those I worked with, and learnt what office life is like! My experience at IPPR North helped me gain confidence in my work skills and for what the future holds. It is an experience which I cannot recommend enough!!
Leah Scott on her internship with the UK Data Service:
My data fellowship was with the UK Data Service, working with Census data. Over eight weeks, I mostly used Excel to analyse this data, as well as QGIS to create some maps. My task was to make task sheets with instructions and hints to help others learn how to analyse social data. This meant I could choose which variables to look at, making it more interesting for me. The data fellowship allowed me to experience being in an office, work independently and grow my confidence in the workplace. I was supported throughout and was never expected to know how to do everything! Also, earning a living wage while gaining some valuable experience made it even more worthwhile.
Manchet 
Posted on April 11, 2023 by manling