Starting New Research: How to Learn What You Don’t Know

Posted on by Saira Reyes

“I don’t know what I don’t know.”

That is what I was thinking when my summer internship mentor asked me if I had any questions. Having only taken MOL214 and CBE245, I was uncertain about what research at a bioenginnering lab on campus would be like. After attending a lab meeting the first day of my internship, I was overwhelmed by all of the new information I was receiving and thought I would never understand metabolic engineering. By the end of my internship, however, I was working independently and designing my own experiments.

When beginning a new research project, particularly in a new field, getting up to speed can be challenging. But if you approach the project efficiently, you will find that this task is not as daunting as it sounds. These are a few strategies that helped me when I entered my summer internship.

Understanding complex mechanisms was challenging, but these strategies helped me along the way.

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How to Write a Precept Response

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Having a pen in hand (and using it with some frequency) will set you up for active reading.

The precept response is a veritable Princeton institution, right there alongside Reunions, long nights in the library, and overly-friendly sidewalk squirrels. Somehow, I didn’t encounter this special form of assignment—where, as the name suggests, you “respond” to that week’s readings—until my sophomore year, but now I feel as though these responses set the rhythm of my academic week. On Mondays I’m responding to readings for a seminar on mythology. Wednesdays, for a history of science course. And Fridays, for a junior colloquium in Religion. Yes, friends, I cannot escape the precept response, and if you’ve read this far, I suspect you cannot either. As a celebration of our shared weekly assignment,  I’d like to offer some tidbits of accumulated wisdom for completing the precept response. Continue reading How to Write a Precept Response

How to Pick a JP Topic in a Research Seminar You Know Nothing About

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Robertson Hall, home of the Woodrow Wilson School

As a concentrator in the Woodrow Wilson School, I have finally reached the much-discussed junior year, a year full of research seminars, task forces, and not one, but two JPs. Before the semester started, I was given a list of 8 to 10 research seminars and asked to rank my preferences. I’m interested in researching race and discrimination, but the limited selection meant that none of my options exactly matched up to this. Now I’m in a seminar about Maternal and Child Health in the U.S., and I have to face the nerve-wracking question: how do I pick a JP topic in a subject I’m totally unfamiliar with? For me, the first step started with a simple attitude change.

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Collaborating with Graduate Students

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Sometimes graduate students are the older siblings you didn’t know you had.

In my Orange Key tours, I always emphasize how exciting it is to be an undergraduate student at Princeton. Unlike many other leading research institutions, Princeton maintains a strong focus on undergraduate teaching. This results in an unusual dynamic between undergraduates and graduate students on campus. In general, the two populations are pretty segregated. Aside from the preceptor-student relationship (and, of course, the ReMatch relationship), I haven’t encountered a whole lot of avenues for collaboration between undergraduates and graduate students in our research projects.

Map of Northeastern Native tribes (ca. 1710), the subjects of my JP research

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Active Engagement and Mentorship on the Juneau Icefield

Posted on by Alec Getraer

For over 70 years the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) has run an eight-week field research expedition on the glaciers spanning Juneau, Alaska and Atlin, British Columbia. JIRP is the longest continuous glacial monitoring program in North America. But what truly sets the program apart is its commitment to active student participation and mentorship: all of the summer research is carried out by students, ranging from high schoolers to Ph.D. candidates, and mentored by field staff and faculty from around the world.

Active participation and mentorship are vital aspects of all student research. In my experience, I learn way more from engaging with research in the real world than from reading, listening to lectures, or completing recipe-type lab exercises. So, when I got the opportunity to join JIRP this summer, I jumped at the chance.

Research in action! The author drilling an ice core (credit Alex Burkhart) and identifying alpine vegetation (credit Hannah Mode) with fellow ‘JIRPers’ on the Juneau Icefield.

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Flexibility of Research: What to Do When You Feel like You’ve Hit a Dead End

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Research can be a truly thrilling experience–interesting data, new findings, surprising collections. However, research can also be incredibly frustrating, namely when you feel like your work isn’t going anywhere.

If you’ve ever been really excited about a topic, done a load of research, and still found that you aren’t making forward progress, this post is for you. I’m talking about hitting tough obstacles in your research–walls you can’t seem to get over–reaching what seems like a dead end.

I’ve been there before (oh more times than I would like to admit), and what I’ve found is that normally, this frustrating lack of a solution is not an indicator that your research is ‘wrong’ or isn’t worthwhile. In fact, it might actually mean that there is another question buried in your topic that needs to be addressed primarily. Continue reading Flexibility of Research: What to Do When You Feel like You’ve Hit a Dead End

Starting the Semester: How to Stay on Top of Things

Posted on by Nanako Shirai

Princeton semesters are hard. For most people, the stress comes and goes throughout the semester.

Going into sophomore year, I wanted to try new extracurriculars (like writing for PCUR and being a writing center fellow) and to continue things that I’d done since my first year (like Princeton University Orchestra and Princeton Social Innovation), but I was worried about how to manage everything.

It’s hard to balance both coursework and extracurriculars.

Extracurriculars are such a crucial part of life here at Princeton, but we’re also students first. How could I try to start the semester off on the right foot?

This question became all the more pressing when classes started and I got a better understanding of the time commitment and effort that was required for each of my classes.

While it was extremely easy to feel overwhelmed, I tried to stay calm. Continue reading Starting the Semester: How to Stay on Top of Things

New Year, New PCURs

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It’s that time of year again. The hustle and bustle of the beginning of the year begins to die down–new dorms have been moved in to, another fall lawn parties has come and gone, textbooks have been purchased–and now its time to jump right into the nitty gritty. As we finish up our second week of classes, the assignments start flooding in and it’s time to get back to work. PCUR is here to help! Join me, our four returning correspondents: Rafi, Shanon, Alec, and Elise, and four new fresh faces: Andrea, Saira, Nanako, and Raya. Coming from a wide variety of disciplines, this year’s team is ready to guide you through the coming academic year.

The 2018-2019 PCUR Team (minus Shanon), photo courtesy of Marah Sakkal

If you have specific questions that you would like to see answered, use the Contact Us form and let us know what kinds of post you want to see! Also new this year, some of our posts will be featured on the Princeton University Instagram story! We’re looking forward to a great year, so continue reading below to see what our new correspondents are bringing to the table.

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Reflections on Sophomore Year: Staying Flexible in Times of Change

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The author and the 2017-2018 ORL Yoga and Meditation Fellows on the banks of the Ganges River above Rishikesh, India. Like many good things, this opportunity became a reality thanks to an attitude of flexibility. 

It’s hard to believe, but this is my last post of my sophomore year. This PCUR “ending,” however, comes at a time when I’m still in the middle of working on Dean’s Date assignments and (thinking about) preparing for final exams, so there’s something a little dissonant about writing a reflection post right now. Indeed, I suspect that only after the last exam wraps up, or after I move home and begin my summer job, will I be able to reflect more fully on my sophomore year. Nevertheless, I do have some preliminary observations, which I hope others will find useful as they take stock of their own personal and academic progress this year. Continue reading Reflections on Sophomore Year: Staying Flexible in Times of Change

Amanda Blanco ’18: Reflections on Independent Research

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Amanda Blanco, Class of 2018, Sociology Department

Amanda Blanco is a senior in the Sociology Department. Having taken several journalism courses and being an avid news reader, she was inspired by current events to write a thesis pertaining to the effects of today’s political climate on college campuses. Amanda recently finished her thesis and is in the midst of preparing for her defense. This process of reviewing her research in order to share it with a larger audience has led her to reflect on what the senior thesis experience has been like and what she has learned from the process. Luckily, Amanda had time in her busy schedule to share some of her end-of-year reflections:

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