How did you get your current job?
I applied for a vacant position at Fafo. They knew who I was from earlier, since I wrote part of my master’s thesis at Fafo.
What did you write about in your master’s thesis?
My thesis was about political ideology among religious Muslim leaders in Norway.
What are your main responsibilities?
My work days consist of everything from preparing applications for funding, to analyzing data, conducting interviews and writing reports. In short: research. What I find most interesting is to discover new things, and then communicate my findings to the wider society. I am very fond of writing!
What are you working on right now?
Currently I am working on a research project about LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community) among immigrants. We have selected some ethnic groups as our main focus. We conduct interviews with gay and lesbians, and examine general attitudes and practices within the group.
Our findings will be published in a research report, which I hope will help make it easier to be a lesbian and gay immigrant in Norway.
How do you use your education from PECOS in your job?
I have benefitted particularly from the lectures in research methodology. Before I was accepted into the PECOS programme I had little knowledge of empirical social research. I use the knowledge I acquired in the programme every day. I still keep my portfolio from the methodology course in my office.
In addition, since I work on immigration, Islam and integration, what I learned through my work with the master’s thesis is very useful.
What are your best tips for students who want to be attractive in the labor market?
I would recommend everyone to take contact with places of work where you might like to work yourself in the future.
In addition, it is smart to think about how your choice of topic for the master’s thesis may be useful in the labor market, although I didn’t really think in those terms myself. I followed my heart and chose a topic I was interested in. Nevertheless, I ended up writing about something that not many had written about earlier, which makes it easier to get a job after graduating.