|
First and last name: Laura Davidson
Year in school: Junior
Major: Psychology and Spanish
Home city/state/country: Reno, NV
1. Where did you work?
I first started conducting research with Dr. Plante and Dr. Olson in the Psychology Department gathering data, but never saw the completion of either project because I went abroad to Spain. These last two quarters my research partner and I recently became interested in academic integrity on campus. Together, we worked with Dr. Bell in the Psych Dept to create our own study which looked at faculty's attitudes about student cheating as reflected on their class syllabi. As a spring board from that data, I'm currently conducting my own research on student cheating itself. Additionally, during spring quarter, I started working part-time for my post-graduate job with the Northern California Cancer Center in Fremont, CA.
2. What was the title of your position?
Data Collector and Research Assistant I guess while I worked with professors. My current job with the cancer center is Research Assistant IV/Interviewer II, I believe. Something ridiculous like that. Sounds impressive right? (I even get business cards!)
3. When did you work there?
Worked with Dr. Plante and Dr. Olson Spring 2004. Worked with Dr. Bell Winter and Spring 2005 and will continue over the summer and fall. Worked with NCCC spring quarter 2005 and will continue there indefinitely until I...I don't know, find something I like better?
4. What did you do?
Plante: His project looked at whether or not the positive effects of exercise could be simulated through a virtual reality simulation of walking. I came in a little late to the project, but for 6 weeks or so we tested the equipment and practiced conducting the experiment within our lab group so it would run smoothly once we began. I also researched past data related to our project.
Olson: Ha, that was a fun one. His two projects centered around recycling habits in Benson and the dorms, so for one project I sat in Benson twice a week counting how many people used plastic containers and paper cups versus ceramic plates and reusable cups. For his other project I measured garbage and recycling levels in the Sobrato and Casa Italiano garbage centers. Glamorous, I know. Actually it was pretty fun to see what ridiculous things people threw out...kind of enjoyed it (secretly)
Bell: Formulated the survey distributed to faculty about their attitudes towards cheating. "Graded" faculty syllabi to determine whether they were addressing academic integrity adequately on their surveys. Edited drafts of the paper, pored over Excell spreadsheets of our data trying to find significant correlations, pretty much everything. With the student section of that project I will again create the survey and distribute it to students, then go on to analyze the data, write up the paper, and then hopefully combine it with our faculty study, look at the differences between faculty attitudes and student attitudes and eventually publish the results.
NCCC: Whew, okay. Right now my main project which is funded by the National Institute of Health is looking at the effects of exercise and diet (specifically soy intake) among pre-adolescent girls to determine early risk factors for cancer. Currently we are recruiting girls for the study which involves giving a lot of talks to schools, organizations, etc. Once recruited, I conduct interviews with the girls and their mothers to determine their basic nutritional intakes, activity levels, etc. which includes collecting a blood, urine, and saliva sample which I later process in our lab.
5. How did you hear about this position?
After looking at the professors' bios on the Psych Dept website to determine which conducted research in fields I found interesting, I literally knocked on their doors and asked if they had any projects right now with which they needed assistance.
The NCCC job I actually found through the Winter 2005 Career Fair held at SCU. Struggling with the impending doom of not having a job and being very close to graduation, I decided to go to the career fair about 2 hours before it began and distribute my resume to anyone who would take it. I wasn't initially interested in working at NCCC, but after getting a call back for the interview, I decided it was a pretty great fit for me and took the job.
6. How does what you learned through this experience relate to your coursework and/or career goal?
I consider the research I've done at SCU as some of the greatest and most fulfilling experiences I've had in my academic career. I am also fairly sure that my prior research experience helped land me a position with NCCC. I also got a killer recommendation out of it since, particularly with my cheating research, my partner and I spoke to our advisor about 4000 times a day for two quarters asking him questions and we all became very close through the process. Though I always considered my psych major as a means to becoming a psychologist, I've recently considered going into the research side of psychology rather than the clinical. We'll see which road I eventually take...
7. How did this experience help you develop your skills and abilities, your personal qualities, your values and perceptions?
There is an enormous satisfaction in asking a question that has since been unanswered in the psych field and formulating an experiment to answer that question. My research opportunities equipped me with an excellent knowledge of the process behind all those published statistics we encounter in newspapers, magazines, etc and gave me more practical knowledge about research than I could have developed in three more years of formal education which is very theoretically based. It is one thing to learn the formula for a correlation on a test and a far more satisfying use of that knowledge when looking at your own data.
8. What did you learn about yourself that surprised you?
I always thought I'd like to work as a psychologist, but I find the research behind the practice far more interesting than the actual practice from which the practice is based. I thought I was a "people person", but I think I might now be a "data" person.
9. How would you describe the value of this experience to other students?
Completely invaluable. Nothing in my education excited me nor prepared me as well for the future as my research.
10. What advice would you give to students interested in doing this?
Don't be afraid to knock on your professor's doors if you're interested in their field, even if you don't know them particularly well. The worst they can say is, "I don't need anyone right now, but check back in a quarter." They are always researching and ALWAYS in need of an extra hand on their team.
|
