Daily Archives: June 22, 2015

Statistics, social programs, and why do an evaluation.

Written on the 473
From Taipei to Taichung
Sunday, June 21, 8:17 pm

It’s Sunday, and I’m just two short hours away from being back in Taichung and seeing Steve again! A two-week separation has been difficult, but I’ve had a lot of fun in Taipei, and Steve has learned a lot of Chinese. The long weekend for the Dragon Boat Festival (端午节) means the trains are packed with people going home and coming back to work. Since I have some time, I’ll write a bit more about my internship, especially since it’s more than half over already!

When I started talking to the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families back in January about an internship, I knew three things: I wanted to do something quantitative with either economics or statistics; I wanted to learn more professional Chinese, since all my public policy training is in English; I wanted to experience the work environment in Asia, since we’re interested in moving to this continent (and very likely, this island!). By mid-March, we had hammered out two projects for the internship. Continue reading Statistics, social programs, and why do an evaluation.