Category: Conduct Research

lab experiences, humanities research, fieldwork, archives, methods, problem solving, research based courses

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Conduct Research

Independent Work Seminars as a COS BSE Student: An Interview with Shannon Heh ‘23

Image of Shannon Heh '23

Shannon Heh ’23 is currently Co-President of TigerApps, a member of KoKoPops dance team, and a member of Colonial Club

At Princeton, B.S.E.* computer science students are required to complete at least one semester of independent work (IW) during their junior or senior year. Students may either take an IW seminar, where a small group of students work on larger projects under a given theme, or a one-on-one IW, where students work and meet with their advisers independently.

Seminars had weekly meetings and provided more structure for students than a typical one-on-one project would; students were asked to choose their project ideas early and received valuable feedback through presenting and having their ideas workshopped by their peers in the seminar.

I met with Shannon Heh ‘23, a senior in the Computer Science department, to discuss her experience in an independent work seminar. Spring of her junior year, Shannon took COS IW 09: You Be the Prof, advised by Professor David Walker. Students were to produce a web-based platform, app, or tool to aid in teaching a particular topic, skill, or concept.

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Conduct Research

No Experience, No Problem! A Guide to Being the Newest in the Lab

Woman in lab coat arranges sample tubes in black ice bucket.
Woman in lab coat arranges sample tubes in black ice bucket.

Having no knowledge about Neuroscience at the time, I did not expect my experience taking Advanced Placement Psychology to amount to more than an interesting elective. However, I discovered my passion for research through Dr. Volpicelli-Daley, who came to our class to give a presentation about her research on Parkinson’s Disease with mouse models. She invited us to apply for a position as a research assistant in her lab, and I ended up getting the job. I worked with the Volpicelli-Daley research team at the University of Alabama at Birmingham during the summer between my junior and senior years of high school and then again over my gap year before coming to Princeton.

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Conduct Research Independent Work Present & Publish Findings

Submitted and Successful: 3 Final Steps Before Turning in Your First Paper

Photograph of Princeton University in the rain, with many students walking, biking, and scootering to class holding umbrellas or wearing rain jackets
These rainy, gloomy days are perfect for colorful umbrellas and cozy paper-writing sessions.

“Did I include a scholarly conversation? Where is the motive of my piece? Do I even have a thesis?!” The “Submit” button on Canvas can stir worrisome thoughts as it may seem permanent or stressful. The goal of this post is to walk you through a few final steps you can take to ensure that everything is in check and ready to go, so that you don’t feel like something is missing once turning in your assignment. These points are by no means the end all be all, but you may use them to help you feel more confident handing in your final product. Thus, without further ado, here are 3 final steps to follow before submitting your research paper.

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Conduct Research

I Survived getting rejected (and you can too)

Photo depicts a female-presenting Asian person with black glasses and long light hair staring at their laptop screen biting a pencil looking frustrated.
Woman looking at laptop screen and biting pencil in frustration

When I finally got rejected from the international internship in Portugal I applied to, I was crushed. I had worked so hard on the application, done practice interviews, and had relevant work experience. I felt that surely I would at least get an interview, and probably be welcomed into the program with open arms. I had chatted with someone else who did the same program and loved it, and I imagined myself strolling the glorious halls of the cutting-edge research facility I would work in. But then the notification date came and passed. “Oh well,” I thought, “I applied to some High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) internships in cool places, surely one of those would work out!” Nope. With the summer break growing ever nearer, it seemed I was officially out of luck. It felt like all of my friends had these grand plans in places around the globe I never even imagined traveling, but I was stuck.

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Conduct Research Independent Work Present & Publish Findings

From Law to Coding: Writing my SPIA Quantitative Junior Paper

Photo depicts grand Princeton building at night time, with ivy climbing up brick that appears reddish in the lighting.
From courses at SPIA to starry nights at Nassau Hall, there are many opportunities to reflect on what type of research is meaningful to you

There are many reasons why I chose to major in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), ranging from the impact that we have through service and the focus on policy and law. One unique feature of SPIA is the ability for concentrators to take more qualitative courses such as SPI333: Law, Institutions, and Public Policy and quantitatively-based courses, such as POL346: Applied Quantitative Analysis. During the Fall of my junior year, I wrote a more qualitative junior paper on risk assessment tools in the pretrial adjudication system and analyzed whether or not they make more biased decisions than do humans (see here to read more about my experience). Headed into my junior spring, I was presented with the choice of writing another qualitative paper or joining a quantitative research lab. Thankfully, I felt confident in my coding abilities due to past courses I had taken which prepared me for this moment (see here to read about how I gained a quantitative background in R as a SPIA major). I chose the lab without hesitation and my spring semester independent research journey began.

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Conduct Research

Failure: Science’s Beauty and the Beast

In my junior year of high school, through my conversations with more and more teachers and scholars, I thought I had come to understand the importance of one inevitable piece of the scientific process (or really any academic discipline):

Failure.  

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Conduct Research Independent Work Present & Publish Findings

Experiences in the ReMatch+ Program: An Interview with Kasey Shashaty ’23 – Part 1

Kasey Shashaty is a junior majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering. She began working at the PULSe (Princeton University Laser Sensing) Lab in the summer of 2021 and has been working with them since. In this interview, Kasey and I discuss how she got involved in this lab through the ReMatch+ program, her experiences working in the lab both virtually and in-person, and where she is taking her experiences in the future. 

Kasey Shashaty ’23
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Conduct Research Present & Publish Findings Research Life

Navigating Princeton in COVID-19 Isolation

      Although things have been looking brighter on campus, with a decrease in COVID cases and happier weather, the threat of COVID-19 still remains and can be a daunting obstacle. I tested positive for COVID-19 last month, and I was lucky enough to get through it, but an extra stressor was definitely keeping up with my classes while being in isolation. Everyone’s experience is different, especially when it comes to symptoms and classes, but I hope that my advice can help you get through a tough time if it ever comes to it.

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Conduct Research Independent Work Present & Publish Findings

A look into Princeton Independent Research: Presenting Proposals to Congressmember Bush

Our task force meeting Congressmember Bush last semester.
She was truly inspirational.

     When you are a first-year, you hear about the Senior Thesis, the Junior Paper, and independent research. While these may seem daunting and unexciting, they are actually some of the most unique and amazing parts of the Princeton experience. Most juniors do independent research within their respective majors. As a SPIA major, I took a Task Force in the fall, where I worked with a professor and team of SPIA students to achieve a policy mission, and I am now in a Research Seminar, where I am doing more quantitative research on a new policy issue. In this post, I would like to share my experiences in my task force last semester in order to help you gain an understanding of what independent research could look like, and how truly incredible it can be.

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Conduct Research Independent Work Research Life

A Week in My Life Doing Materials Science Research

This semester, I am doing junior independent work in the Arnold lab group at Princeton, which is based in the MAE department but also focuses on materials science, which is what I am interested in. My project investigates creating graphene aerogels from protein precursors, which basically means that I get to select different proteins of interest, freeze-dry them, pyrolyze them, and then see if they create graphene by examining them under a scanning electron microscope (SEM). These graphene aerogels are interesting materials because of their high porosity and conductivity, making them promising for applications to energy storage, which is why we are interested in researching them.

I thought it might be interesting to highlight a week in my life (well, actually two weeks) to give some insight on what lab-based independent work can look like during the school year. I want to note that this is only my experience as a CBE major, and independent work can look very different for other majors. If you’re an underclassman interested in doing junior independent work or just curious about what that could entail, I hope that this post can provide some insight.

The inside of Bowen Hall, the hub of the Princeton Institute of Materials and where my research lab is.
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