The Realness of Research

As a research student in the Advertising department, it is a lot of times difficult to put yourself in real life scenarios of things that might happen during research or how it actually happens in the real world.  This semester I interned at Schlesinger Associates, a market research company that facilitates a lot of online quantitative research for clients, but also has an in-house focus group facility, which is where I work.

I’ve enjoyed being able to see the business side of how research is conducted and how much work, time, and money goes into it.  It’s a lot of things that are simple but I might not know about them until I’m actually in the real world doing research for a real company.  For example, many clients will conduct research for the same study in multiple cities. Schlesinger has facilities all over the country and also internationally.  Clients will travel from Phoenix, to Philly, and then to New York to get perspectives on consumers around the country instead of just one city.

My specific job is basically helping out clients that come to our facility to do research.  So it’s been interesting to see things like discussion guides and rescreeners that are coming from actual companies.  it’s also cool to talk to different moderators and see their personalities and how they interact with respondents.  With this internship, I feel like I get to see a lot of the realness of research that I would not have the opportunity to see elsewhere.  This is also not only my internship, but my job that I’ve maintained this past summer and will continue into the spring and I’m exited to see where else it takes me.