Universidad de Piura

PERU

UNIVERSIDAD DE PIURA

Klaudia Chmielowska, Christ Church, BA Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Final year undergraduate, Remote Working

Work Projects

During the internship, I have been working on a number of projects, including the case for narcopardons in Peru, the opioid epidemic, and the effect of the Pope's speech on the level of violence in Peru. I have been trained to do some basic analysis in Stata and my responsibilities focused mostly on research. For instance, I was asked to prepare a document that would look at other cases of narcopardons around the world and analyse their causes. I have been working around 20 hours a week and I have been in a constant contact with my supervisor Lima Fernando. We had weekly calls, sometimes just as two, sometimes with the rest of the team (his co-author and another intern located in Lima).

I have received all the support I needed and there has not been a point when I was left with a task that felt overwhelming. Sometimes I felt that my workload was not enough but after raising those concerns with Fernando, that was quickly fixed.

One of my main achievements during the internship was producing a report on policies promoting research and collaboration at universities that is going to be used for internal purposes in the university. I have been also heavily involved in the organisation of an international conference for young economists, which was very inspiring and insightful.

Daily Life

I was very sad to hear that I could not do my internship in Peru since it was one of my strongest motivations to apply for this internship in the first place. However, I was very lucky to do most of my internship from Greece, so I had a chance to enjoy nice weather and get some rest from Oxford following my finals. Given that this internship was only part-time, I had a lot of time to enjoy my new holiday location, including trying out swimming, scuba diving, and paddleboarding. I was only available between 9 am and 6 pm (Monday-Friday), which helped me keep my work-life balance intact.

I especially enjoyed having spare weekends because I could come back to work full of energy and new ideas. I would say that the biggest challenge was the time zone difference between Greece and Peru, however, my whole team was very accommodating about it and we scheduled all the calls in my afternoon, which was morning in Peru. Having weekly calls with my supervisor at the same time every week also helped manage my schedule better because I could organise my workload ahead of the time.

Lasting Impressions

I highly enjoyed my internship because I had an opportunity to learn more about economic research at universities. Having the 'behind-the-scenes' perspective was really important to me because I was thinking about continuing my education at a higher level (masters and possibly PhD). I had many talks with my supervisor about the challenges as well as rewards he encounters during his projects. Although I still have not made my decision about future plans, I am definitely more informed now after having finished the internship. I now want to spend some time in business to see how it feels to work in the private sector so that my final decision can fully reflect my interests and career goals. Moreover, the projects were challenging and I could always count on the support of my whole team.

I had a chance to learn more about Latin America and about Peru in particular, which I found especially valuable given that was my initial motivation to apply for this internship. I am sad that I could not go to Peru and do my internship in person but given how difficult the situation was this summer, I am very pleased that I could spend my summer learning something new, both in terms of knowledge and skills. I truly enjoyed my time and would recommend this opportunity to anyone!

Vivien Mei-Chen Cai, St. Hugh’s College, MSc Economics for Development, Remote Working

Work Projects

During this internship I was a research assistant for an economics research project at Universidad de Piura, Peru. The project investigated the impact of having family connections in a bank or microfinance institution on the probability of accessing credit. My main task on this internship was to construct a literature review for the working paper. This consisted of three final products: (1) a chart listing the relevant literature on the economic effects of networks, on the family,

and on credit access and micro-loans, (2) a more detailed chart discussing the methodology, identification challenges, database and results of each article reviewed, and (3) a written report, forming the literature review section of my supervisors' working paper.

In the final week, I also used what I observed from the literature review to help my supervisor in interpreting their results and comparing the effects they found to those of comparable papers in development economics.

My supervisors were courteous, clear and responsive in their email communications with me. Given the nature of this project, it was easy to adapt to remote working. The staff from the host organisation were very friendly and helpful in all their communications although I am sorry to have missed the opportunity to travel to Peru.

Daily Life

The research project consisted mostly of searching for and reading academic journal articles online, as such it was easy to adapt to working at home. I followed my familiar routine from studying and writing my dissertation, albeit with more communication with my supervisors to check that my work was aligned with their expectations. Just like with studying, personally, I found it easier not to set aside fixed time intervals for work, but rather to set daily goals. For example, I might aim to read four articles a day, or write up a sub-section of the literature review.

Outside of my time for work, I spent time in daily devotionals, read books on a variety of subjects, spent time with family and went for daily walks in the evening to wind down. My internship coincided with moving back home to Hong Kong after four years in the UK, so it was also a transitional phase of life for me. Having something to concentrate on was helpful as I considered next steps after graduation.

Lasting Impressions

The research project was related to my dissertation topic however, where I studied the economic impact of political connections in my own research, this project considered family connections. It was interesting to learn more about the growing literature regarding networks and also to learn about the technique that my supervisors employed in their research, eigenvector centrality of the individuals in their family networks, constructed from their family names.

The work gave me some insight into what it's like to work for an academic institution. I have been considering future research work and particularly pursuing a DPhil, so this internship has definitely been helpful as an experience.