My main experience in ethnography as a research method and methodology is from my research for my master’s thesis. Even though, I used the ethnographic framework to formulate my research questions, collect my data, and write (an ongoing process) my master’s thesis I still feel like a novice in the field. This is primarily connected to my informal training rather my hands on and real-world experience with ethnography mixed in with the shaky foundation I created from my time in the field. One big reason, I took this class is to become more familiar with what is ethnography and how other people in the field use it for their research. Another reason I want to learn more about ethnography is because I foresee my future research being heavily based in ethnography as ethnography provides more liberty than other methodologies.

When I look at the potential student outcomes for this class I want to meet all of them. Each student outcome is something I never fully explored in any of my classes in my Applied Sociology master’s program. However, one student outcome that pops out to me is, “Understand minor and major differences between different kinds of ethnographic research” because so far in the readings and discussions in class I see how ethnography is interpreted based on the researcher. I’m also learning how ethnography adds 1) a more human component and 2) allows the research to describe at length what she observed and experienced. The new terms I learned so far are “ethnographic texture” and “found recordings” which speaks to how unexpected the methodology process is for anyone involved. This is what makes research exciting and I wish to keep this excitement when I conduct my own research in this class. 

A challenge I may have is not giving myself enough grace when learning. I’m unsure how to word this properly. However I will remind myself along the way that breaks are necessary and there is always tomorrow to finish something. I don’t think we all breathe enough throughout the day so I’ll make sure to do that.