Undergraduate Research Opens Door to New Opportunities
Deadlines for summer research programs applications looming
Roxana Popescu | January 25, 2010
To the average 3-year-old, “research” means studying shiny snail trails or jumping into puddles and seeing how far they’ll splash. For the third-grader, it might mean dropping a tooth into soda and watching it turn to mush, or interviewing family members for oral histories. For the 13-year-old, research may involve exposure to a science lab, for the same dissections that have been performed for generations.
But it’s really around grade 13 – freshman year of college, that is – that the concept of research begins to get turned on its head. From a process that focuses on figuring out the world and making personal discoveries, it becomes something collaborative, competitive, innovative and original.
UCSD’s new research portal was launched this fall precisely to help undergraduates make the transition from students into scholars. With answers to basic questions like why research is valuable to undergraduate careers and what current opportunities exist—and advice about more complicated issues like how to develop relationships with mentors and how to choose a research topic from all the possibilities out there—the site aims to give undergraduates concrete tools for getting involved in research at every level and in every discipline.
With summer internship and program deadlines looming, there’s no better time to start using the site, campus administrators say.
“It’s not too early to start thinking about the summer,” says David Artis, dean of Undergraduate Research Initiatives. “The portal would be a good place to find out some of the opportunities and deadlines coming up and to get information about preparing an application.”
David Artis, dean of Undergraduate Research Initiatives.
Artis cites two looming deadlines: the Amgen Scholars Program, for which applications are due Feb. 2, and the California Alliance for Minority Participation in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics summer research program, for which applications are due March 5.
Gabriele Wienhausen, associate dean for education in the Division of Biological Sciences, is teaching a freshman seminar this quarter about conducting research in the biological sciences.
She recently asked her students a simple diagnostic question: What drew you to this class?
The answers were all along the same lines, she said: “Everyone says I should get involved in research, but I don’t even know what it is. How do you do it?”
Among those recent high schoolers turned aspiring scholars, Wienhausen sensed excitement, curiosity, but mostly, she says, she saw fear. Because they were clueless about research—and they knew it.
So Wienhausen called up the new portal on the classroom computer.
The impact was immediate.
“They were utterly relieved, because it really helped them understand that their being confused is actually okay. Research is something new that you learn at this institution. They were also glad to see that there was a tool now, designed for them to use.”
Gabriele Wienhausen, associate dean for education in the Division of Biological Sciences.
She added that the portal, which showcases both opportunities for new involvement and examples of completed research projects, can help students determine what is an acceptable type of investigation, if a project proposal is original and relevant, and how a particular topic relates to the broader discipline.
“They all want to cure cancer or save the environment,” she explained. “This portal helps them understand how huge those questions are, and that all of us do a little piece. This goes back to the idea that research is creating new knowledge as a community.”
Wienhausen and Artis both raised the point that the research portal is a resource for more than students. Faculty can use it to find new talent, see what colleagues are doing and showcase the accomplishments of their undergraduates.
“The portal really belongs to the entire university,” Artis said. “It’s a good way for anybody to see what kinds of currents there are, what kinds of exciting developments we’re pushing.”
Above all, though, both stressed that research is an integral part of any academic career—and the sooner a student starts, the better, because developing the skills and critical thinking tools does not happen overnight.
“They can be real contributors. Absolutely,” Wienhausen said. Students often return from summer programs or internships with questions and ideas that feed months of work back on campus—and occasionally lead to dazzling results.
“I know many, many undergraduates who did research over a long period of time and ended up being co-authors and even first authors of scientific papers,” she said. “However, and this is what I told the freshmen, doing research and becoming a researcher is really a long procses. Developing skills and developing ways of thinking and ways of knowing? That takes time.”
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