Tackling Longitudinal Data: Insights from My Time at MMU

For most researchers, data cleaning is one of the most formidable challenges. So, imagine my terror when, as a first year PhD student, I was confronted with the copious quantity of  information present in the Millenium Cohort study, an ongoing investigation tracking the lives of thousands of young people born across the UK in 2000-2.

For this reason, I am  extremely grateful for COORDINATE project who granted me the opportunity to spend two weeks at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Here, I received an immense amount of guidance and support from my academic host, Lee Bently, who kindly walked me through the procedure of cleaning and merging datasets. I was also extremely lucky to have been visiting at the same time as several other researchers. It was thanks to them that what would have been a daunting task of longitudinal data analysis became much easier.

Beyond improving my analytical ability in R, a skill I am sure will prove useful in future endeavours, this experience also gave me the chance to explore Manchester, where I learned a lot about the city’s history and enjoyed its wide variety of cuisine.

Overall, the experience was thoroughly enjoyable and one I am unlikely to forget