T5-C: Bridging Disciplines while Fueling Engineering and Management Skills: A Case Study in Transitioning from Undergraduate Research to Graduate Study
Undergraduate research experiences can be a key factor in recruiting and retaining quality graduate researchers, and the lead author’s non-traditional experience in cross-discipline undergraduate research fueled her motivation for graduate study while developing engineering and management skills. This paper uses the lead author’s experiences alongside the framework in place within the Bagley College of Engineering (BCoE) to describe the value of undergraduate research experiences. As a sophomore mechanical engineering student, Ashley worked as an undergraduate research assistant (URA) researching concrete. She relied on her fellow student researchers and faculty to replace her initial fears with confidence in a laboratory setting. These experiences and a love for thermal-based science led Ashley to working with an interdisciplinary research group for her graduate study. What has become evident through this transition is that the BCoE and faculty advisors intentionally put a framework in place where undergraduate students can succeed in research and that this framework allowed the aforementioned reservations to erode fairly quickly in favor of excitement and enthusiasm. The lead author now understands how she is part of that framework, and sees graduate research not only as an opportunity for engineering discovery, but also as a responsibility to do her part to invest in undergraduates and ignite a passion in them similar to what happened for her. The primary goals of this work are to describe the potential benefits of undergraduate research for enhancing graduate student experiences, to encourage faculty and colleges to incorporate undergraduate research experiences (especially across disciplines), and to share personal experience to enhance faculty and student perceptions of advantages of undergraduate research
