Month: March 2018

How Undergraduate Research Eases the Transition to Graduation

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By: Emily Saccuzzo, OUR Peer Research Ambassador

When I first started at UConn as an undergraduate I had absolutely no idea what I wanted for my future career. I came in undeclared with only a vague idea that I knew I loved science in high school. I first started taking chem classes and realized that this was something that maybe I could see myself making a career out of but still I didn’t know what I wanted that career to look like or even what a career in chemistry could look like. I decided to join chemistry club in my sophomore year and quickly learned from other students about the undergraduate research that they were doing. Continue reading →

Why Research

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By: Kavita Sinha, OUR Peer Research Ambassador

Coming into my freshman year of college, research wasn’t even a blip on my radar. I knew that I wanted to attend medical school after I graduated, and research didn’t factor into my thoughts on how I would get there. Even after I watched my friends send email after email to professors, anxiously seeking a lab position, I had no interest in doing the same. It wasn’t until my parents asked that I find something to keep myself occupied over the summer that I started to look into research positions. Now, less than 50 days away from graduation, I am coming up on three years in my lab and am writing an Honors thesis on the work I have completed there. So, for those of you who ask the same “Why Research?” question that I once did, here are some of my answers. Continue reading →

Community Outreach and Research

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By: Priscilla Grillakis, OUR Peer Research Ambassador

One of the aims of a research project is to learn about or create something that can be used to help others, and often times this could involve aspects of community outreach. Last year, after seeing a need for an improved emergent bilingual program, three of my peers and I applied for an IDEA grant.

We found a specific school to conduct our research in, and hoped that through our developmental stages of the research we would be able to help the current students. We had many steps to our project to ensure we could create the best possible program, with our end goal being to market the program to various schools and organizations to try to help as many emergent bilingual students as possible. Due to coordination and scheduling difficulties with the school we were working with, we had to adjust our project. Continue reading →

New Jersey, to Connecticut, to California, and Back

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By: Maya Schlesinger, OUR Peer Research Ambassador

Within the first few weeks at UConn, I think many of us learn how expansive this community is. Many of us come from Connecticut and Storrs isn’t too far from home; but some of us come from farther away and Storrs is a new, scary experience. As an out of state student, I fell into the latter category and I had to certainly learn how to thrive on my own—making new friends, taking initiative in classes and extracurriculars, even eating on time and the right foods. Continue reading →