Serli Polatoglu: Research skills invaluable for all students

Upon entering my final fall quarter at UCLA, I considered myself extremely lucky to have made it to the brink of graduation having never written a single research paper.

The concept of “research” never really gelled with me – it was just a word professors in the hard sciences threw around in their laboratories; a concept that I didn’t think applied to me as an English student.

Having been so artfully avoidant thus far, I was deflated with the realization that a majority of my courses this winter quarter required hefty research papers.

As an English student, my papers focused primarily on authors and written works provided in class – outside research was often unnecessary.

Here I am, a few short months away from walking in my cap and gown and I have no idea how to go about spearheading the research and analysis of a topic of my choosing. At this point in my academic career, I feel I should be more comfortable producing my own research, rather than solely writing papers guided by the curriculum of my professors.

To counter the apprehensiveness with which upperclassmen often approach independent research, it is important to seek out research courses early on in one’s undergraduate career. Students should motivate themselves to find lower-division courses that introduce the skills required for academic research, lest they find themselves in my inconvenient situation.

Only in my final year at UCLA have I been asked to pick my own paper topics, so the concept of independent research – identifying a subject matter, scouring UCLA’s libraries and producing a polished final product – is still entirely new to me.

Conducting independent research is an invaluable skill – it is the marriage of all the disparate things we are taught in our classes. In managing research of their own, students are able to contribute to academia rather than just learn about the work of others.

As surprising as it may seem, my situation is not uncommon. It turns out it is quite easy to avoid research projects as an English student.

Professor Stephen Dickey of the English department said that, outside senior seminars, the most common avenues through which English students conduct research are through independent study courses, honors contract courses or producing an honors thesis.

Yet honors contract courses and honors theses are a constricted means of pursuing research – individual students have to apply for a position in the College Honors or Departmental Honors program to be able to take part in either.

Meanwhile, independent study courses and senior seminars are mostly reserved for juniors and seniors who are required to complete the course to graduate.

“There’s a self-selecting process that goes on – students who have an eye on graduate school in English develop research skills on their own anyway,” Dickey said.

Yet reflecting on my UCLA experience, I realize now how imperative it is that students be prepared for these more academically rigorous research-based courses before they near graduation.

Conducting academic research is a basic skill that should be acquired by all UCLA undergraduates early on, not just those who plan to attend graduate school.

Undergraduate students in their first two years at UCLA should therefore always keep an eye out for research opportunities, seminars and workshops that prepare students for rigorous upper-division academic research and self-generated projects.

In my time at UCLA, I assumed that because practical research is required of many students in the sciences, those departments would have a more diligent or welcoming approach to research. For example, undergraduate students studying biology, chemistry or physics must take classes with laboratory components where research and hands-on experimentation are emphasized.

Despite offering lab courses and encouraging students to seek research positions outside their classes, students in the sciences may often hit roadblocks similar to mine.

Isabella Chilingaryan, a fourth-year psychology student, said that a research methods prerequisite course for her major, Psych 100B, became “too much” for her. And though this course must be taken before a student can declare the major, many students are upperclassmen with no prior research training by the time they take this course – yet another indication that an introductory course in research would be beneficial for underclassmen.

“I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” Chilingaryan said, adding that though conducting an actual experiment was not too difficult, writing the research proposal to the exact specifications of her professor was overwhelming.

These feelings of inadequacy in undergraduate research are far too common.

Rather than feeling panicked and nervous when faced with a lengthy independent research project when the time comes, underclassmen should welcome opportunities such as general education freshman courses that require research papers, workshops at the undergraduate Writing Center or any alternatives that guarantee a good foundation in future research.

Email Polatoglu at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected] or tweet @DBOpinion