Research Club Hosts First Introductory Workshop
Research Club held its first workshop for underclassmen after school today, in an effort to start preparations for the upcoming Synopsys Science Fair on March 11.
The meeting today was conducted mainly for freshmen and sophomores interested in pursuing research projects. Research Club officers presented information about how the general science research process works, along with several tips for finding good project ideas, to over fifty students.
The club also discussed procedures for working in Open Lab, the research facility the school offers that gives students access to many resources normally present in a university lab.
Many underclassmen who attended found the session informative.
“It was a great learning experience for the underclassmen that are newer to research to gain some insight into how to craft a novel yet realistic research project,” Rajiv Movva (9) said.
Adele Li (11), who heads publicity and outreach for the club, believes that more workshops and informational meetings like this will help underclassmen interested in research.
“I think the workshops Research Club is doing will really help freshmen and sophomores who are interested in Synopsys but have limited ideas of what they wish to do,” Adele said. “I think that the club is expanding this year in terms of its cohesive mentoring program and how this program will help students become more successful scientists not with the scope of their projects but with their scientific accuracy and credibility.”
The mentoring program offered by the club is one of its main objectives for the year. To help assist freshmen and sophomores interested in the field, Research Club pairs underclassmen with upperclassmen based on the scientific subject of interest.
In addition, the club hosts a speaker series, bringing in subject experts and other professionals to discuss their research. Speakers include professors from universities as well as research scientists from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
Chris Spenner, who teaches Physics and advises the club, outlined the goals of Research Club.
“We have been pretty careful to define our goals, both in maintaining what we have done well in previous years, especially as far as mentoring younger students for Synopsys, but also expanding our reach to the middle school,” Spenner said.
He added that the club would continue “providing more and more services throughout the year, both for students doing projects and the general Harker audience.”
Andrew Jin (12), president of the club, believes that Research Club can help assuage fears students might have about research.
“Research is really difficult and it has a really steep learning curve to get started and it’s often quite intimidating and daunting for the younger students to start,” Andrew said. “Research Club is really this big support system to guide younger student step by step through the research process.”
The club plans to have its mentoring program finalized by next week, in which case underclassmen will start working with their mentors on their projects from the week after. With many mentors and participants involved, Research Club plans to scale the sizes of its activities this year.
Vedant Thyagaraj is the Science & Technology Editor for Harker Aquila. He is currently a senior and has been on staff for the past three years. Vedant...