Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: Campus News

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Tucked away on the quiet second floor of Maxwell Library are some pretty loud ideas, such as proofs to prove the validity of quantum mechanics and advice on editorial writing. These ideas aren't confined to the dusty books in the library shelves, but rather inside the Undergraduate Review, a publication offered by the Office of Undergraduate Research which is a compilation of BSC student work. Inside this office students apply for and collect information on grants to engage in research, both in and out of their field of study.

The possibilities seem endless, and a major draw would seem to be the money. Up to $4,500 can be granted as a stipend and for research supplies. Ironically enough, the biggest draw for students is the least valuable thing to acquire in undergraduate research. Undergraduate research allows the students of BSC to add their voices to the other scholars in their disciplines, sometimes even on the national level. Brianne McDonough, class of 2010, was one such student.

Spending only a small amount of her own money, she had the opportunity to present her research at the Geological Society of America in Portland Oregon. Plane tickets, hotels, meals, and the convention fees were paid for by the grant, but despite the monetary support from the school, the rewards were far greater.

"At the conference there were a lot of prospective graduate schools there. It's like a recruiting thing for them." notes Brianne McDonough.

Her presentation was on the radial fracturing pattern on the planet Mercury. The idea for such an intense topic came from her mentor, Robert Cicerone. The first step in undergraduate research is to find a professor who shares a similar interest. One might think that finding insightful information on the radial fracturing patterns on the planet Mercury would be the hard part of undergraduate research.

"The hardest part of undergraduate research is finding a mentor," states Lee Torda, Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research. "You have to find a faculty member you like - you have to find a faculty member willing to mentor a student, a faculty member that does a kind of research that you are interested in."

Continued...

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