By Chloe Zampetti, Peer Research Ambassador

Research is often associated with the mental picture of a scientist doing bench work in goggles and a white coat. Your research project may very well involve just that! However, as many undergraduate researchers have established, there are so many different ways to conduct a research project. Undergraduate researcher at UConn includes field work, focus groups, working in communities, and more.

In the case of my project, the field is confined to the 13 inches of my laptop screen. I have been working to synthesize data from existing literature pertaining to mercury and selenium in fish tissues to draw conclusions about human health. Without any fish tissues or humans as a part of my investigation, I’ve been working with nothing but data for the past two years.

If you are working through a data-driven project that doesn’t involve much collaboration, I am sure you can relate to the frustration and isolation that comes along with it at times. Even still, I don’t couple my research experience with a sense of boredom or negativity. While it has involved countless hours behind a computer screen, there are things I’ve implemented into my research practices that have helped me maintain my overall well being and allowed me to enjoy the work I’ve done. If you are working through a project right now that is causing you to feel isolated, I hope my experiences are helpful for you! Continue reading →

By Mahima Mehta, Peer Research Ambassador

Going to college comes with a lot of new prospects — new friends, new classes, new clubs: new responsibilities.

Should you only commit to one thing? What if you’re interested in a bunch of things? How can you give them all your full attention? Although time management is an imperative skill, it can take a LONG time to develop — oftentimes through trial and error. Here are some points I have gathered along the way that have helped me with managing my time and being able to commit to all of the things I am interested in.

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By Chloe Zampetti, Peer Research Ambassador

Your months of hard work and dedication to your research or creative project are finally summed up in a poster. First and foremost, congratulations on completing that huge step! It is now time to present your work!

It is both exciting and nerve wracking to be recognized at a poster conference or exhibition. I presented my own research project for the first time at the Fall Frontiers Undergraduate Research Poster Exhibition. To help you feel more prepared for your presentation, I am going to explain my experience so you know a bit more about what to expect, and then give you some tips and tricks on how to prepare your talk. Please note, Frontiers was not a competition-based poster exhibition, so if you are preparing for a competition, be sure to seek out additional resources along with this one.

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Interview by Elisa Shaholli, Peer Research Ambassador

National Scholarships & Fellowships
Part 2: Applying

A Conversation with Dr. Vin Moscardelli, Director of UConn’s Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships (ONSF).

Click here to view part 1 of this 2-part series.

How can someone best strengthen an application for national scholarships & fellowships?

Start thinking early because many of these applications require not one, not two, but at least three and sometimes more, letters of recommendation. Finding meaningful letters doesn’t happen organically. You have to make that happen. You have to build these relationships, cultivate them, and sustain them. I encourage you to start thinking early about what your network will be because you want advocates.

For most of these scholarships, they have a scholarly component to them so you do need to take care of things in the classroom and be intellectually curious and you need to be aware of what’s going on in the world and engage as an original thinker in some kind of way. I think this is an important part for a lot of these but how much of an important part varies enormously across scholarships. For some, you need to be a good student but if you’re in the upper half of your class you’ll be fine. For others you need to be a truly great student – near the very top of your graduating class.  There’s a range of opportunities out there looking for different things and they weigh different components differently depending on their mission.  Again, it’s all about fit. Continue reading →

Interview by Elisa Shaholli, Peer Research Ambassador

National Scholarships & Fellowships
Part 1: Are They for Me?

A Conversation with Dr. Vin Moscardelli, Director of UConn’s Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships (ONSF)

Can you tell us about the Office of National Scholarships & Fellowships?

We are the office that works with students competing for nationally competitive awards. Some of these are awards people may have heard of like the Rhodes, Fulbright, Truman, or Marshall. If you’re a scientist you may have heard of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship or the Churchill. Most of these are for graduate study. People are applying to go abroad or to pursue graduate degrees.

We spend a lot of time working with students on application essays. We read essays, provide feedback, and work with students to try to get a sense of what the future holds for them and what the best path forward might be. The conversation tends to focus on the best path for you and the best opportunity for you. The fit is a really important part of this. It’s meant to be a learning process. What we do is try to help students think clearly about what they want to do and why. Continue reading →

By Claire Fresher, Peer Research Ambassador

When getting started in research, it’s important to think about what motivates you and what is going to drive your passion for research. Do you love the process of finding solutions and answering questions? Is it a competitive drive to create something new? Are you naturally curious and enjoy learning new things? Do you thrive off having goals, deadlines, and objectives to achieve?

As college students, we are all motivated to complete our degree. What drives the motivation to go beyond our academic comfort zone and pursue research? Research takes work, and you want to make sure you’re doing something you are proud of and are learning about a topic that you want to talk with others about. Recognizing how research motivates you is a great place to begin your research journey. Continue reading →

By Drew Tienken, Peer Research Ambassador

This past month, I submitted an abstract to present my research at my first international conference. After three years of pursuing independent research endeavors and developing transferable skills, I anticipated few obstacles to my pursuit of submitting a successful abstract. I could not have been more wrong.

After spending an exorbitant amount of time tweaking seemingly unimportant words, I sent my abstract over to my research advisor for some peer-editing. Despite only being seven sentences long, the paragraph had nearly 50 suggestions of things to change. I was shocked, and extremely upset with myself. How could I have received this criticism? Did I do a bad job? How could I spend so much time writing a piece that I thought was high-quality work, but receive such a large amount of feedback? Continue reading →

By Lauren Rudin, Peer Research Ambassador

As a second semester senior, my time as an undergraduate researcher is reaching an end and I have given my future beyond UConn serious consideration. When reflecting back on my experience while completing medical school applications, I realized that the skills research provides are much richer than the ability to check off a box on any application.

We have all heard of transferable skills, but how do you explain the skills you’ve developed through research and apply them to other settings? Continue reading →