My TAV experience at Manchester Metropolitan University

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the TU Dortmund University in Germany. I have been working on adolescents’ well-being using longitudinal datasets. This February, I had the chance to visit the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU) at the Manchester Metropolitan University for two weeks. Before the visit, I was very looking forward to this visit to learn the Millennium Cohort Study and connect the interdisciplinary team at the PERU. My project during the visit is to understand how family socioeconomic status, self-esteem, and social support can promote diverse aspects of well-being for adolescents over time.

I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Lee Bentley and Prof. Gary Pollock at the PERU, and the team of the COORDINATE Transnational Access Visits to make this visit happen. During my visit to the PERU, I received timely support from Dr. Bentley, which helped me explore complex datasets of the Millennium Cohort Study and organize analyses effectively. I enjoyed collaborating with visiting scholars who were also utilizing the Millennium Cohort Study. We engaged in discussions about our research questions and developed R/Stata code together. These peer discussions encouraged us to think creatively about how to effectively wrangle data, and the reasons for any unexpected results we encountered.

I felt fortunate to meet Prof. Gary Pollock and Dr. Haridhan Goswami, who shared their insights on well-being policies for adolescent populations. The academic exchange with visiting scholars and the team at the PERU broadened my understanding of longitudinal datasets and the well-being of adolescents.

Additionally, I had the opportunity to explore the vibrant city of Manchester with other visiting scholars. We explored a variety of cuisines, ranging from Asian to European and immersed ourselves in a rich football culture in Manchester. I also visited the people’s museum to gain insights of the past, present, and future of peoples’ lives in the U.K.