RESEARCH
What is accomplished in research?
"IMAGINATION IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF RESEARCH." --ALBERT EINSTEIN
When starting all of my research projects, I had no idea where they would lead me or how far they could take me. At the beginning of my freshman year, I was concerned about fulfilling this competency as I had no idea how broad the category of research truly was. However, I research questions can be adapted to fit your interests and future career goals. This is what I have striven to do throughout my career at MNSU.
Attending conferences was one way I developed my research skills. My first research project was writing a creative fiction prose piece "Tinta" and translating it into my second language, Spanish. At first, I thought I would write the piece (not end up collaborating to edit it with several individuals) and present it once at Streamlines. However, I was pleasantly surprised when this project turned into a Practicum experience, and I presented it at two additional conferences. I also published "Tinta" in an undergraduate creative journal. As part of my Practicum through Honors, I also developed lesson plans to implement in my future Spanish classrooms relating to my story "Tinta." Having presented "Tinta" at three conferences, I saw how exciting it was to disseminate research and gain feedback from students as well as faculty from different universities. After this, I wanted to find more ways to relate my future career goals with research. To do this, in my sophomore year, I collaborated with Katelynn Malecha on a research project that tied together our two majors. We researched misconceptions of people who have a disability and wrote a children's book to try to combat those misconceptions by starting conversations with young minds. We have presented this research at three conferences (NCHC, UMRHC and NCUR) and will present once more at NCHC in Atlanta, GA in November 2017. The research is titled Focusing on the Ability, Not the Dis/ability.
I also developed my research skills through projects in class and as extracurricular activity. After starting my minor in TESL and continuing to learn about the Spanish language, I have realized my passion for linguistics. Introductory linguistics courses in both English and Spanish have shown me the joy of linking phonetics and pronunciation on the small-scale to larger issues and concepts such as pragmatics. I am in the process of researching about bilingual programs in Latin American countries, with a focus on Peru and its indigenous cultures. Find my research on linguistics here. As someone interested in language and helping others become published authors, I found an opportunity to be a student editor for the NCHC-sponsored journal UReCA in its second year of publication. As one of just several people working to bring this journal to honors programs across the country, I found myself also in a leadership role as we made decisions about the direction the journal would head in. At the end of August, I reviewed both creative and academic works, using the rubrics that we created during our workshop. At the end of the boot camp, we had to work to negotiate these rubrics and look at various works to make sure they were clear enough for us as reviewers. Each discipline that I have reviewed has its own conventions and writing style, which is important to distinguish in the rubric. Although each reviewer is from a different part of the country, we still work together to accomplish editing tasks and communicate through group chat on Slack. We also use Google documents to communicate deadlines. The journal will be published at the beginning of November, and I am so excited to see what has been created this year.
Research projects throughout my career at MNSU showed me how interconnected all of the competencies truly are, as my research projects molded me into a leader and global citizen, too.
When starting all of my research projects, I had no idea where they would lead me or how far they could take me. At the beginning of my freshman year, I was concerned about fulfilling this competency as I had no idea how broad the category of research truly was. However, I research questions can be adapted to fit your interests and future career goals. This is what I have striven to do throughout my career at MNSU.
Attending conferences was one way I developed my research skills. My first research project was writing a creative fiction prose piece "Tinta" and translating it into my second language, Spanish. At first, I thought I would write the piece (not end up collaborating to edit it with several individuals) and present it once at Streamlines. However, I was pleasantly surprised when this project turned into a Practicum experience, and I presented it at two additional conferences. I also published "Tinta" in an undergraduate creative journal. As part of my Practicum through Honors, I also developed lesson plans to implement in my future Spanish classrooms relating to my story "Tinta." Having presented "Tinta" at three conferences, I saw how exciting it was to disseminate research and gain feedback from students as well as faculty from different universities. After this, I wanted to find more ways to relate my future career goals with research. To do this, in my sophomore year, I collaborated with Katelynn Malecha on a research project that tied together our two majors. We researched misconceptions of people who have a disability and wrote a children's book to try to combat those misconceptions by starting conversations with young minds. We have presented this research at three conferences (NCHC, UMRHC and NCUR) and will present once more at NCHC in Atlanta, GA in November 2017. The research is titled Focusing on the Ability, Not the Dis/ability.
I also developed my research skills through projects in class and as extracurricular activity. After starting my minor in TESL and continuing to learn about the Spanish language, I have realized my passion for linguistics. Introductory linguistics courses in both English and Spanish have shown me the joy of linking phonetics and pronunciation on the small-scale to larger issues and concepts such as pragmatics. I am in the process of researching about bilingual programs in Latin American countries, with a focus on Peru and its indigenous cultures. Find my research on linguistics here. As someone interested in language and helping others become published authors, I found an opportunity to be a student editor for the NCHC-sponsored journal UReCA in its second year of publication. As one of just several people working to bring this journal to honors programs across the country, I found myself also in a leadership role as we made decisions about the direction the journal would head in. At the end of August, I reviewed both creative and academic works, using the rubrics that we created during our workshop. At the end of the boot camp, we had to work to negotiate these rubrics and look at various works to make sure they were clear enough for us as reviewers. Each discipline that I have reviewed has its own conventions and writing style, which is important to distinguish in the rubric. Although each reviewer is from a different part of the country, we still work together to accomplish editing tasks and communicate through group chat on Slack. We also use Google documents to communicate deadlines. The journal will be published at the beginning of November, and I am so excited to see what has been created this year.
Research projects throughout my career at MNSU showed me how interconnected all of the competencies truly are, as my research projects molded me into a leader and global citizen, too.