After three years of sitting in lectures, with everything pre-structured and organised, you get used to entering robot mode and automatically following a plan handed to you on a piece of A4 paper. So it comes as a shock then being told that you're in your last lecture of University and from now on everything will be independent study.
To begin with, you leave the lecture ready to make plans for the weeks ahead. No lectures? That means endless Netflix binging, mini-breaks and more nights out without having to worry about being hungover for a 9am lecture the next day…wrong!
When starting independent research, like the Live Project, it may seem like a dream come true but in reality, it takes a hell of a lot of planning and motivation…skills that sometimes don't come so easily when you've been a student for the past few years!
Therefore, before I could get fully stuck into my research, I had to spend a couple of days planning the project and organising the mass muddle of ideas that were bouncing around my brain!
I began by writing out my research question, and what methods I’m planning to use:
Research question:
How effectively does The British Army make use of Social Media Platforms in Regard to Publicity, Recruitment and Retention?
Research methods:
1. Content Analysis
2. Questionnaires
3. Interviews
4. Examining past research and existing social media strategies
Next, I sat down and drew out a spider diagram, breaking tasks down into headings and subtasks. This allowed me to break down the project into more manageable sections, so I could start working through the lists logically, rather than getting overwhelmed by the jumbled jobs pinging around my head and choosing to watch another Netflix documentary to avoid the confusion!
So now the planning’s done, it was time to start…let the Live Project commence!
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