Undergraduate research – introduction achieved. Now what?

Undergraduate research – introduction achieved. Now what?

Ashley Pira NU’12 and Jim Stellar

As a Freshman, Ashley wrote a post on March 25^th that attracted a good deal of comment back to me about how students approach professors and the trepidation they feel while at the same time making the point that students have a lot to offer professors in assisting in their research. Now she has not only achieved that research entry, she had a scientific presentation, a poster at the Society for Neuroscience meetings this fall.  This is an accomplishment that is normally achieved by a masters-level graduate student who is on her/his way to a doctorate.  So, first let us find out what Ashley did as a scientist.  Tell us about the work.

During the spring semester, I continued to help out with projects, and ended up co-presenting at Northeastern’s Research and Scholarship Expo with a graduate student on estrogen’s effects on cocaine sensitization.  Then I stayed over the summer and continued to work in that professor’s lab mostly helping out with ongoing projects on maternal behavior, cocaine addiction, and autism.  The largest contribution that I made was toward another graduate student’s project on the effects of prenatal exposure to valproic acid and its potential importance on the neurobiology of autism (presented at Society for Neuroscience 2009).  In doing so, I also learned how to operate the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) machine.  Toward the end of summer, I began still another project with a more senior undergraduate researcher on stress levels of rodents during fMRI imaging.  The stress levels were determined by measuring the frequencies of ultrasonic vocalizations during acclimation, a process that prepares the animals for the fMRI scan.  Finally, throughout the summer I also worked on an intravenous self-administration of cocaine project, which is an ongoing project in a lab that collaborates with our lab.  Finally, this fall I completed a directed study course with my primary professor on the effects of neurosteriods in psychological disorders and autism.  I did a literature review and wrote a summary review paper.  During the next semester, I will continue research on the effects of prenatal valproate with a graduate student and lab technician, and I will learn how to do Western Blots.

Very impressive.  Now tell us what it feels like to be part of a high-profile research team but still be a sophomore?  Do you or they ever notice on a daily basis?

I am both grateful and honored to have this wonderful opportunity at such a young age.  Most undergraduates do not get to work with fMRI or run their own projects, etc.  So, while it feels great to be part of something so high-profile, I want to maintain a sense of gratitude toward those who have helped guide me and I really appreciate the dedication to undergraduate research that I’ve experienced at Northeastern.  The other lab members do not seem to notice anymore that I am a sophomore because I’ve been around for over a year now.  If I’m helping out on with a project, I think that they expect and know that I’ll be there without question. 

I encourage the reader to go back now and read (or re-read) what Ashley said in her first posting about needing to work to have confidence to ask a professor to do research.  All of that is gone and she is now a full member of the team.  I know this from the inside, because my lab was that collaborating lab at Northeastern that she mentioned above.  What has replaced it is a confidence in herself that is so strong you see her saying above that she is guarding against not being grateful.  This is what happens to graduate students, in my long experience of training them.  The settle in, assume the role, and work.  When undergraduates behave like graduate students, as Ashley has, then they step up and accomplish.  It is this kind of accomplishment, driven by attitude, that permits undergraduates to assemble a record that allows them to get into the best medical schools.  From my lab group at Northeastern, the last 6 undergraduates to go to medical school went to Stanford (twice), Yale (twice), U. Pennsylvania, and NYU.  The last 4 to go to Ph.D. programs in Neuroscience (with full support) went to BC, UC Irvine, UCSD, and Harvard.  At the time, Northeastern was ranked by US News as about 100, yet these students were achieving what I saw my students achieve when I taught at Harvard (1978-1986).  How do they do that?  The differences between us are smaller than we think.  Gladwell makes that point in Outliers.  Experiential education can transmit the message of accomplishment and confidence to a student, just like getting into one of the best universities in America can do.  After that point, it is just a matter of time-on-task and building a record.  But this is the old professor talking.  We have right here a student who is in the midst.  Let’s ask her what she thinks of what I just wrote.

The power of experience is evident, not only in Northeastern’s continually better ranking, but also in the power of the students that graduate. In addition to reading, studying, taking exams, and being active in campus life and activities, “real-life” experience and pursing passions are also a huge aspect of everyday life.  Though I haven’t been on an official “co-op” yet, I’ve already been exposed to so much.  Even discussing with upperclassmen that have gone on a six-month co-op or two, it’s easy to detect that sense of pride when they explain that they’ve worked for Merck, or the Aquarium, or whatever it may be.  The sense of pride is blatantly obvious, and that’s the point.  Students graduating from experiential education programs learn in the classroom and “by doing.”  They go above and beyond and have impressive resumes to show for it, which makes their experience significantly comparable to attending a school like Harvard, or any other highly ranked school. 

Let’s keep this going.  As you know and some readers know, I taught at Harvard Department of Psychology for 8 years (1978-1986) as an Assistant and then Associate Professor.   I have often said that what I saw undergraduates at Northeastern accomplish by being serious undergraduate researchers was very similar to the confidence and vision for themselves that I saw in my Harvard undergraduates.  So, how do you feel about that vision for yourself now vs. last year after you have made this strong beginning? 

Working in the lab has certainly boosted my confidence about the future.  As a new lab member, I was more timid and unsure of the things I was capable of.  Now, after about a year and a half of experience, I feel enabled and accomplished.  Over my recent Christmas vacation, I shadowed a surgeon at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey.  The time I spent in the OR and with the residents was exhilarating, and it made my thoughts about attending medical school extremely real.  And, when anyone asked me about Northeastern, I proudly told him or her about the lab and the projects I’ve been involved in. They were really impressed. My experiences truly have opened my eyes to endless opportunities, and I now believe that, with continuous hard work, I have an equal chance of getting into medical or graduate school as anyone else.  It’s a great feeling.

So, what does this all mean?  We think that mastery is important and not just in the classroom where many variables are controlled, but in real world situations where things can go wrong and people must prove themselves.  High-end undergraduate research does that because labs and other forms of serious scholarship by faculty are real-world operations (e.g. they may require raising of funding from grants).  They are populated by people (e.g. postdoctoral fellows) who may be much senior to an undergraduate and to whom they must prove themselves.  The best experiential undergraduate programs, produce this mastery, different in every discipline.  Why is this important?  Because people don’t do things they think are stupid and it seems stupid to some (or at least beyond their reach) undergraduates to think of becoming a surgeon.  But if a student shows full mastery of a situation like a lab, then their minds can open up to thinking seriously about the possibility of going on to do great things.  This is how the emotional circuitry (otherlobe) works to support cognitive circuitry and make ambitious career planning real.  As “Yoda” said to Luke Skywalker in the famous movie scene where he (but not Luke) lifts the fighter out of the swamp, “Do. Or do not … There is no try.”  Now that is otherlobe thinking.