Undergraduate research organizations?

[Fishin316]

Hello SDN,

I have noticed at my school that there is a huge lack of information about research, and I (I've had some research experience) am asked two or three times a week by students who are completely clueless as to how to get involved in research or where to even begin. There are many other issues as well with the undergrad research at my school. So I came up with a rough idea of an organization and have passed it by the head pre-med advisor and he loved it. All the professors I have talked to love it as well. My question to you all is: Are there at your school organizations that are focused mainly or solely on undergraduate scientific research? If so, would you all mind posting what are some of the things that you do? If you are in leadership, what are some of the challenges that you face on a day to day? If anyone has started such an organization, if you have any helpful advise, or just anyone who has thoughts, questions, or concerns, I would love to have some feed back.

The current (condensed plan) is two parts:
1). First to have lectures and workshops that educate students what the purpose of undergraduate research is (e.g. being scientists not technicians; realizing that understanding the science behind what you are doing is very important) and how to act in a lab (we have bad problems of students not getting along with grad students or professors, so for example we would have someone talk about DONT BE COCKY when you first enter a lab) .
2). We would establish an undergraduate scientific research journal. I believe that this would give students an opportunity to practice scholarly activities of editing but would increase the awareness of other students so that they try to get published in this or other journals.

I myself am a junior (not a freshman) so I've seen how things work in this school. Once again, anything helpful I would love to hear, thanks!

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[Syxx]

Here are some of the things we did that I think were particularly helpful in getting undergrads in research.

- Asked professors at the beginning of each semester if they were looking for undergrads and how many spots they had open. Posted this information on website.

- Kept an updated list of available fellowships/internships/scholarships open to undergrads for research. Also posted this on website.

- Got professors to include a link to website on their syllabi and mention to check it for opportunities about undergrad research.

- Held an information meeting at the beginning of each semester going over opportunities in the department/available scholarships/etc. Our faculty advisor talked about things to look for/ask before joining a lab and ways of contacting faculty. Senior undergrads that had been in labs for awhile would also talk about their experiences.

- Undergrad research symposium. We arranged with the department so that one of the weekly department seminars was a poster session just for undergrads. Faculty judged and prizes were given for best poster/best presentation. Winner of best presentation was also sent to national American Chemical Society conference to present there.

We had a great faculty advisor who really helped us with departmental issues. If there are any professors that you know are especially interested in undergrads doing research try to get them involved. Certain grants (NSF CAREER comes to mind immediately) place a heavy emphasis on teaching so any faculty with those type of grants would be someone of interest as well.

 

[HumanBean]

You might want to consider contacting the national conferences on undergraduate research (NCUR) organization. They've established an undergraduate research focused publication and annually host a rotating conference for undergrads.

 

[sergeman]

At my undergrad, we had a whole honors programs with classes dedicated to research. Some of the things we focused on was basic skills like doing literature search, giving a presentation, and writing a proposal and then of course there were the research skills, but a lot of that you should see in your basic science classes like chemistry or biology. The next thing we had were some special topics classes to spark interests in particular research areas. Lastly, there was a large list of faculty members that were interested in working with undergraduate students.