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The greatest misperception about undergraduate research is that there is none. It opens students
eyes to so many possibilities. We want to use this to show not only the university but
the entire state, other places around the country, what it is A&M students can do.
Texas A&M is one of the greatest research universities in the world. What that means
is that every single ones of us, the faculty, is doing cutting-edge research in our own
individual fields and so for the students to have the opportunity to work one-on-one
with the faculty member doing that kind of work, I just can't think of a more significant
way to maximize your education value here. Working with professors is awesome, its challenging,
and its exciting, and you get to learn so much more about a different field besides
your general class, so I definitely encourage it.
Blake is working on a project to understand how the ocean plays a role in either driving
or maintaining such really warm climate states. I want to go to graduate school and so this
has been an awesome transition with low key project but still have possibilities and still
have things you get to accomplish on your own.
The real value with working with an undergraduate is they force you to communicate much more
effectively with the segment of the audience that you want to have read your research;
the general public, because they force you to explain and to clarify.
Undergraduate research has opened a lot of opportunities for me, its immensely challenging,
its definitely been one of the most challenging undertakings of my academic career. My project
is studying the efficacy of foreign aid in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Kaleisha reminded me how interesting that subject matter was, how important fundamental
it was as what we do as social scientists, and progress of the local community.
I believe doing undergraduate research sets you apart as an applicant and as a potential
employee and graduate student. I consider my research project as a huge learning experience,
it thought me analytical skills and changed the way I think about problems. Its definitely
a scientific way of thinking that you really don't encounter.
Doing research is so important to teaching. The undergraduates I've worked with, have
really fresh and creative ways of thinking about the material I investigate. So to have
a fresh set of eyes and a fresh mind come to my material, its been an incredible set
of collaborations that it has produced, a lot of knowledge.
Dr. Caffey was available to mentor and undergraduate for research and so I kind of jumped at the
opportunity and I knew I wanted to study baroque architecture and he's kind of the go-to guy
for that. I have been able to at the same time learn and teach others and that has actually
taught me more than any other semester that I've been at Texas A&M.
In the case of Jordan, he actually traveled ten days to these European churches, he was
able to physically experience these spaces and come back and share that freshly gained
knowledge. With the students in my art and architecture history class, I can spend the
rest of my life trying to recreate that but he has brought it into the classroom and made
it an extraordinary experience for everybody. The neat thing about undergraduate research
is that you get to see the entire spectrum of how what you learn in the classroom and
what you do in the lab, how it all fits together. You really fit theory with application and
that's the beautiful part about it. When you apply it for the rest of my life and I've
learned persistence and thinking outside the box coming up with new ideas to solve interesting
and challenging problems that haven't ever been approached before.
You start with somebody that doesn't know something can't be done and by golly sometimes
if he's smart and enthusiastic, then he can find a way.
He started with a technology that we have used before and there were some very fundamental
faults with everyone one of those previous ways of doing it. Chris came up with a better
way to fabricate these things that literally eliminated those faults and made a transmission
that just is what you would like to have if you just write a wish list to Santa Claus.
Research is a really key part of higher education. Digging in and trying to find interesting
and new ways of looking at a problem, new insights into the problem, that's the hardened
core of education and it makes it come alive.