Tag: self-reflection

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Research Life

You Can Get Started Now

Trustee Reading Room, a place go when they’ve decided they have to start working – Courtesy of the Office of Communications

Historically, I have been what one might label as a habitual procrastinator. Readings and problem sets get put off until there often quite literally is not a last minute left to spare. It’s a stress-inducing habit, but one way or the other, the work always gets done. It’s like a just-on-time economy, where everything arrives but nothing is ever early. Procrastination like this can feel like it doesn’t come with real consequences. As a result, in the lead up to every project, I find myself sitting around doing anything but getting started. It can feel like waiting for some kind of invitation to begin the work. If you’re reading this and aren’t just sympathizing, but instead thinking about something you’re actively not doing, you’re in luck. This is your personal invitation to get started.

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Conduct Research Get Started with Research Research Life Resources

Close One Door, and Another Will Open

A field ecologist looks through an endless field of seaweed.
Fieldwork in the Intertidal. Photo Credit: Marshall Mumford.

It’s okay to fail. No, really, it is. You may feel that the achievements that brought you here have put you on a pedestal, destined to keep rising higher and higher, but someday that pedestal will break or crumble, and you must figure out how to keep going. 

This is true especially in research. Having been involved in scientific research from the early days of doing science fair, to analyzing my data for my senior thesis, I feel like I have rather good authority to speak on failure. These are my four tips for coping with failure as you embark on your research journey. 

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Independent Work Research Life

The Importance of Community in Research

Multiple hands joined together
Finding community

I spent this past summer in the lab on campus, and while that may not be a glamorous Eurosummer, it gave me the opportunity to get to know my lab members better as well as my own research. The supportive community I found not just changed my summer, but also how I view research as a career. 

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Independent Work

Exploring and Engaging with the Literature

Forbes Library with a laptop in the foreground
An evening in Forbes Library

With senior year well underway, it’s still pretty hard to wrap my head around the fact I’m actually working on my senior thesis. What isn’t hard to wrap my head around is the fact it means I’ll be producing yet another literature review. Whether it was my R2 during writing sem (an assignment from a now ancient version of the course) or what is shaping up to be the largest thing I’ve ever done, there’s always a lit review. This makes plenty of sense, given that literature reviews allow you to perform a necessary survey of the scholarly landscape, and can be used to teach necessary skills related to analyzing and synthesizing a broad range of perspectives and narratives. Despite this ubiquity, not every literature review is cut from the same cloth, and after writing my fair share of them, I’ve come to understand the practices that allow a quality literature review to stand a cut above.

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Research Life

Sun, Science and Schedules: Don’t Let Summer Happen to You

Tree in summer framed by Princeton dorm architecture.
Beautiful summer view at Princeton. Photo Credit: Denise Applewhite.

For those planning to spend their summer researching whether it’s your first foray or your senior thesis, there are a few things that I have taken into consideration this year with my own planning that I think will be useful for others.

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Research Life

Incorporating Lessons from Coursework and Research Into Day to Day Life

A sarcophagus depicting Priam kneeling and kissing Achilles' hand.
Sarcophagus depicting king Priam imploring Achilles for the return of the body of his son, Tyre, 2nd cent AD. Photo Credit: National Museum of Beirut.

I am a Classics major on the pre-medical track, which means I spend roughly equal parts of my intellectual life in ancient texts and clinical/STEM spaces. Most people, when I tell them this, assume I’m describing a contradiction – humanities on one side, medicine on the other, and me shuttling awkwardly between them. How can my work with Ancient Greek and Latin texts possibly inform my time with patients who live in a modern world and are treated with modern medicine? How can all the time I’ve spent thinking about literature, philosophy, and art from different time periods be relevant to my day-to-day life, or my future career as a physician?

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Independent Work Present & Publish Findings Research Life

Dealing with Feedback

Aaron Burr Hall Entrance
Entrance to Aaron Burr Hall, home to the anthropology department and my JP adviser. Photo credit: AccessAbleUSA

Whether it’s long hours alone in a lab or late nights in Firestone, research can feel like a uniquely isolating experience. The process of compiling existing knowledge and producing new knowledge invites us to dive deep into ongoing conversations that exist within our fields. These deep dives into the procedures, frameworks, and models that define research projects require a degree of focus that can narrow our view. One of the few moments in any research journey that disrupts this individual flow is the feedback process. That moment, when we are reminded that research is explicitly collaborative, is always critical and often dreaded. Having received my fair share of feedback over the years, I’ve learned just how important each step of the feedback process is. This goes beyond just receiving feedback, but instead really considering the importance of preparing for feedback too.

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Conduct Research Present & Publish Findings

Navigating Deadlines

Student wearing headphones works in on the first floor of Firestone Library
A student working in Firestone Library. Photo credit: Denise Applewhite, Princeton Department of Communications

If someone asked me to describe my experiences with research in a word, I’d probably end up at a loss. My research experiences have been exciting, tiring, and fulfilling all at once. Research is endlessly multifaceted, with each experience being unique. Still, a few constants remain, and deadlines are certainly one of them. No matter the methods, no matter the discipline, every project eventually comes to an end. As that moment creeps closer, it often feels more and more inconveniently insurmountable.

Despite this, deadlines are important. They not only help with the goal-setting process, but also force us to abandon the appeal of endless revisions in the pursuit of perfection. Deadlines ensure that, at some point, there will be a final product. Meeting those deadlines, however, is a different story and one that can present real challenges.

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Conduct Research Research Life

Doha Diaries: Zara’s Internship at QCRI

This summer, Zara Hommez traveled from Princeton to Doha, Qatar, for an internship at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), where she worked in the Humanitarian AI division. As a sophomore majoring in Operations Research and Financial Engineering (ORFE), she was drawn to the placement through Princeton’s International Internship Program (IIP) because it offered a rare blend of quantitative modeling, computer vision, and real-world impact, which is the exact intersection she hopes to pursue.

When browsing IIP opportunities, QCRI immediately stood out. Its mission to use data and AI to address global humanitarian challenges aligned perfectly with her academic interests in optimization, systems thinking, and applied machine learning. The chance to live in Doha, a rapidly growing, modern city at the heart of the Middle East, added an exciting cultural dimension she was eager to explore.

Zara on a sand buggie
Zara on a sand buggie! Photo credit: Zara Hommez.
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Independent Work Present & Publish Findings

The Role of Struggle in Research

Roman copy of a Greek bronze bust of Aristotle by Lysippos (c. 330 BC).
Roman copy of a Greek bronze bust of Aristotle by Lysippos (c. 330 BC).

Aristotle’s Metaphysics begin with an oft-quoted adage:  πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει (Aristotle, Metaphysics A.1 980a). “All humans, by their nature, strive to understand.”

With some spare time over fall break, I decided to brush up on my Greek philosophy. My upcoming junior independent work will focus on Lucretius’ philosophical poem De Rerum Natura, and he engages with so many ideas from ancient Greek thinkers – Epicurus, Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle, to name a few – I thought it prudent to be familiar with them. Given that the very purpose of their works is to explain their ideas, I didn’t expect to run into serious trouble as I began reading them. Instead, as I started making my way through Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Plato’s Timaeus, I found myself entangled with ideas of identity, causation, and substance. My overwhelming reaction was… “wait, what?” 

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