A milestone, of sorts

I reached a big milestone today as a researcher.  I got my first IRB (Institutional Review Board) application approved, which means I can conduct my research study in Savannah next week as planned and use the data for possible presentations and publication.  The IRB basically oversees both medical and behavioral sciences research, making sure that participants are protected and the research is conducted ethically.  This is something all researchers have to do, but it's kind of tedious and can become timely and involve many revisions.  Some students who work on big grants for their professors don't do one until late in their graduate experience, so I'm glad I was forced to do one early on.  I only had to make a few small corrections and additions to mine, which is great, and I feel much better equipped, thanks to this experience and my qualitative methods professor, to do these in the future.

Now comes the real work!