Monday, April 26, 2010
Certainly there are those who are interested in the complexities of the human body, the beautiful chemical reactions that occur in the space of a test tube or the sheer wonder of the stars in the night sky. But to become a true scientist, one must take this modest interest and transform it into a legitimate profession.
At universities, such as ours, undergraduate research opportunities help students make this transition. Undergraduates can get experience investigating the genetics of worms, the migratory patterns of butterflies, novel anti-cancer pharmaceuticals, and much, much more. But many students are becoming increasingly ambivalent about the value of such research and are abandoning its true intellectual potential.
Whether it’s the natural sciences, the social sciences or the humanities, undergraduate research allows students to explore their interests beyond the classroom. It can be either independent or guided by a research mentor. In either case it provides the chance to be an investigator in addition to a student. It can even help to graduate with honors and is an excellent mark of distinction for those entering graduate school.
However, this research is sometimes performed simply as such a resume booster, and not for its own merit. This is particularly true in the biological sciences, where many students gain laboratory experience simply as an aid to get into medical or graduate school.
Undergraduates will often have little awareness for the effects of their research projects or even the context of their question in general. Undergraduate researchers should be able to explain the significance of their research for the greater scientific community and defend the limits of their conclusions. But many merely perform the motions of research, blindly following the directions of their faculty mentor. Research for them is simply a line on their curriculum vitae, one more step towards a career.
To be fair, research is a difficult activity for undergraduates to comprehensively understand. Research projects are built upon the results of decades of prior research — a complex culmination of the failures and successes of scientists of the past. Expecting an undergraduate to comprehend the entirety of their research project after only taking a handful of prerequisite courses is certainly unfair. But if the student is willing to put in the effort to conduct a research project, they should be expected to develop a respectable knowledge base.
Research faculty and mentors are also not entirely blameless. Though many foster independent undergraduate research as a serious investigation and significant teaching opportunity, some treat the undergraduates purely as hourly employees. The students clock in their 10-15 hours per week in the laboratory and perform a set of menial tasks for an overarching project they barely understand.
Undergraduate research is chance for the University to stand out as a true academic learning community. There are research opportunities here that rival the best colleges of the nation. The University offers a diverse range of fields, approaches and interests that can appeal to nearly any developing scientist.
But the only way the University will inspire a new generation of legitimate scientists, with skills of investigation beyond the technical aspects of research, is to encourage sincere undergraduate devotion to projects and active mentoring by the faculty.
— Folmsbee is a senior from Topeka in neurobiology.
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