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MIC Undergraduate Research | Jennifer Alt
Having the opportunity to participate in URECA this semester taught me a lot about
the research process. I have never done any kind of linguistic research and this
really opened my eyes to it. I knew what the research process consisted of (question,
data, analysis, results, conclusion, etc.) but I never had a chance to actually see
for myself how they work together. For me, I think that was the most difficult part
of the project. It was sometimes confusing to figure out what information fell under
which section, but doing this project and having the time to revise it and go over
it helped me to realize the perfect structure for my information. My favorite part
of the URECA process was doing the actual poster presentation. I believe that my
college experience in general has helped me become a much better presenter and public
speaker than I ever was in high school; this presentation especially. In this case
I was presenting on my own, with my own material. Although I was nervous it actually
made me more confident to be standing next to a poster that I created with research
I found on my own, rather than a power point slide of facts that we learned in class.
It was definitely a great learning experience as a whole. I also liked the nature
and the set up or URECA.
We were able to see the many other presentations that students had worked so long
and hard on, and not only in our major. It is extremely eye opening to see the lengths
that the science students went through to find these amazing results from a future
of curing HIV to suppressing carbon monoxide in homes and buildings. I am very glad
that I had the opportunity to be a part of URECA rather than writing a paper on my
work. It made it much easier for me to lay out my ideas, data, and information in
poster form than it would have been to write it in paper form. Writing a paper, I
do not think I would have had the same confidence or interest in my research that
I did presenting at URECA. Thank you for giving me that opportunity.