The Undergraduate Research Blog provides an outlet for student researchers to convey their research experiences to their peers, the public, and future undergraduate researchers. This is an opportunity to reflect on your experience and research process in an informal way.
REQUIREMENTS
- Write a blog post of 500-800 words on a topic of your choice (this can be solo, or a collaborative effort with your fellow researchers)
- Submit an Authorization to Post
- Send finished posts to Kelly Pillsbury at ugr@research.ucsb.edu. You can also request a review of content and grammar.
- Summer Deadline: August 15, 2019
Please include:
- (At least) 1 photo or image to go with your post.
- A creative or descriptive title
- A short bio at the end so people know who you are. Include an optional photo of yourself if you’d like. You can also include links to your social media.
- Ex.: Ngan is a third year student at UCSB. She loves to paint, play pool and sail. She traveled all the way from Florida to Santa Barbara to study Biochemistry and she has been working in an Organic Chemistry lab with Dr. Javier Read de Alaniz. She gets super excited to make molecules that have never been made before and to learn more about the chemistry that is all around her.
POSTING SCHEDULE
Blog posts will be posted on a bi-weekly schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays after submission.
BLOG TOPICS
Blog posts tend to loosely fall into the following categories, though you can write on any topic related to research. Remember that blog posts are an informal way to communicate about your personal research experiences. Think about what your peers might be interested in reading, or what future student researchers might find insightful or useful information.
Research Snapshots
Students detail what research looks like that’s specific to their field, or go into depth on what they are researching. Where does the research take place? What do you study? Are you in the lab or in the field? Here, you can tell them about your experiences, and how research can often occur even in non-traditional fields. You can showcase the work you are doing, and why you got into it or why you think it’s interesting. Take care to speak with your faculty or graduate student mentors about what’s ok to include if you will be referencing research done in their lab!
- Meet Your New Sibling! The…Fruit Fly? by Chantal Lee
- The Irony of the Moth Eye by John Stair
- Biology is as Real as the Life it Studies by Karla Bernardo
- An Introduction to Tidal Harmonic Analysis by Brett McKim
The Student Researcher’s Guide to Research
Here you can take the opportunity to provide advice to prospective undergraduate research students so that they are better prepared for the world of research. What you give advice on is totally up to you; you can focus on how to work with faculty, how to develop research projects, how to find faculty to work with, etc. Give personal stories or anecdotes on how you dealt with a difficult problem, or how to work as part of a team. Talk about something specific that stood out to you in a meaningful way during your experience.
- Are Professors Really People Too or Just Three Lizards in a Trench Coat? by Haley Bowden
- Talking to a Professor 101 by Fred Reitman
- PSA: It’s Ok to be Confused by Liann Jimmons
- A Travel Guide Through Science Research and Across the World by Ivan Rodriguez
A Day in the Life
This choice is exactly what it sounds like: an inside look at a day of research. You can either focus on what a “typical” day would look like, or make it about quite literally one day–the choice is yours! Some students choose to make this kind of post as a video instead of a written piece.