Category: Research Life

work-life balance, student experiences, study abroad, extracurricular balance, research confidence, mental health, community

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Conduct Research Research Life Resources

The Creation of TigerResearch: An Interview with Vivek Kolli ’24

Photo of Vivek Kolli '24

Vivek Kolli ’24 is Vice Chair of the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Director of Marketing and Outreach for Scholars of Finance.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Vivek Kolli ‘24, a junior in the Operations Research and Financial Engineering (ORFE) department. Vivek is one of the three developers for TigerResearch, a comprehensive platform that allows for students to easily navigate through their database of Princeton professors and their research areas. In our interview*, we discuss his vision for the platform, the importance of entrepreneurial ideas in driving the research process, and advice for students who would like to get involved with research at Princeton.

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Conduct Research Present & Publish Findings Research Life

Tips for Talking About Your Research

Sharing the discoveries you’ve made is not just extremely rewarding, but a necessary part of the research process because it ensures your findings can be put to use. Writing about your research is a tough obstacle to tackle in and of itself, but what I want to focus on today is the arguably more intimidating half of sharing your research: speaking about it. Both formats require demonstrating your command of the subject while also being engaging. Unlike writing about your research, where you generally have a well-defined goal from the get-go, you will find yourself speaking about your research in an enormous range of contexts. Here are three of my tips for talking about your research, whether summarizing your findings for your grandma or giving a formal presentation to a group of experts.

A woman giving a presentation
A presentation given in Princeton’s beautiful J-Street Library.
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Research Life

Opportunity Overwhelm

An image of a coffee mug sitting atop a monthly planner.
An image of a coffee mug sitting atop a monthly planner. Photo credits: Estée Janssens (@esteejanssens)

“Don’t let any opportunity pass you by.” Whether from parents, coaches, teachers, or other peers, chances are we’ve all had this phrase quoted to us at some point in our high school careers. Before Princeton, I more or less lived by it. I knew that opportunities had to be sought at all times everywhere. One thing I hadn’t planned for coming to Princeton, though, was the possibility of there being too many opportunities. When resources are abundant but time is scarce, how does one choose? How does one take advantage of opportunities that are exciting, meaningful, and fun for them without risking burnout? Read on for four recommendations on how you can make the most of your Princeton experience while maintaining a work/life balance.

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Research Life

The Wonderful Act of Grabbing a Coffee with Your Professor

Top-down photo of two coffee mugs on saucers, placed on a worn wood block surrounded by leaves. The coffee has a pattern made in the foam.
Two cups of coffee waiting for you and your professor

Princeton is a wonderful place. Among all the elements that make this university great, in my opinion, two stand out: the students and the professors. Students come from different backgrounds, with all sorts of fabulous experiences. And, in departments across campus, we have so many valuable professors – who are world-renowned in their respective fields – that make this place so amazing. 

But, there sometimes tends to be a divide between these two important elements. In my encounters with my peers, I have often noticed that undergraduates find professors “intimidating” to reach. One of my friends even told me once that “I think my professor’s time is too valuable to be wasted on me.” 

As a first-year student, I found the work of the professors in all of my classes very fascinating. But I was perhaps too shy to reach out to them to learn more about their work. What changed the game for me was that my residential college, Rocky, had organized a “Take your professor to dinner” night. Since it was a structured program planned by the college, it made it much easier for me to invite a professor for dinner. And I did. I invited my chemistry professor, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I have made at Princeton so far. In fact, to this day, he is still an amazing mentor for me. 

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Conduct Research Independent Work Research Life

From Politics to Neuroscience: 5 Princeton Courses I’ll Never Forget

Photograph of Nassau Hall at night. Blueish-Green light is cast over the center of the building. The brick pathway leading up is wet and covered in fall leaves.
Rainy fall leaves will turn to snowy flakes before you know it; it’s never too early to plan some future courses!

“I have to wake up at 6:23 AM for course enrollment?!” Yes. You do. But you got this! It’s true that course enrollment is still a month away, but it is never too early to start drafting your schedule to avoid this “oh no” early-bird moment. Generally, I recommend taking courses that excite you, even if they are outside of your major, because before you know it you’ll be an old senior like me wishing you had time to take more. Everyone has a different taste in classes. I am a SPIA major who is passionate about service, social justice, and law, but I have tried to take unique and expansive research-based classes. Thus, without further ado, here are 5 of my most memorable classes at Princeton, in no particular order, and why they might be of interest to you:

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Present & Publish Findings Research Life

Conversations over Lunch: The Research You’ve Started Without Even Realizing

There’s nothing very special about the statement that lunch is fun – who doesn’t enjoy it? What I’ve found more surprising is that even with all the thought provoking classes I’ve taken at Princeton, lunch is consistently one of the most interesting parts of my day. Whether relaying key points from a particularly great morning lecture, talking about our new favorite YouTube video, or filling each other in about weekend plans, my friends and I use lunch as a chance to share our latest finds. What I recently began to consider is that this universal desire to start a conversation around our latest discoveries sits at the core of the research process.

Image with a sun flare in the front of Forbes College.
On this particular day, Hiba and I had lunch at Forbes.
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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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Present & Publish Findings Research Life

How to Cancel on Someone, the Right Way

Earlier this winter, I received an email inviting me to a day’s worth of interviews for an MD/PhD program. This invitation included a schedule with Zoom meetings that extended much later into the day than I expected. As a result, these meetings conflicted with some of my classes as well as a meeting for an extracurricular activity.

We’ve all been there: something comes up and we can no longer make it to a class or meeting on our calendars. Whatever the reason, there’s a special kind of stress that comes with realizing you’ll need to cancel on someone. When will you have a chance to make this up? Will your colleagues and professors be upset with you?

I’ve also been on the other side of the equation: as a supervisor for Murray-Dodge Café, I’ve received my fair share of emails from students needing to miss a shift or a meeting. While the best way to handle these situations is to avoid them altogether, that isn’t always possible, so in this article, I’ll share some of my tips for handling these sticky situations!

Displaying a secondary time zone on my Google Calendar really helped me stay on top of my interviews and course schedule!
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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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Research Life

Tips on Effectively Learning Vocabulary Words for Foreign Languages

As a senior concurrently enrolled in two Persian classes and working on completing a minor in German, I am no stranger to learning vocabulary words. To be frank, however, I have rarely enjoyed this process. From awkwardly jotting down words in the middle of conversations to hunting for their precise definitions and usages, I have found learning vocabulary to be more difficult and painstaking than the simple memorization task it is made out to be. The worst of all has been forgetting a vocabulary word I have studied or even failing to correctly identify a word, realizing after the fact that I ‘knew’ what it meant but couldn’t tease out the meaning in the moment.

There’s more to vocabulary words than memorizing terms themselves, as exhibited by the Persian word for attention, ‘ta-va-joh’. While we say we ‘pay attention’ to something in English, we more often ‘have attention’ or ‘do attend to’ something in Persian.
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