STAR: A Golden Opportunity to Unlock
By: Ty Wong
After arriving at Drexel, first-year students have a wide range of options in front of them to make their college experiences worthwhile. If students seek to take a hands-on approach to their education while being creative, they should explore the potential of being a student researcher by applying to become a STAR (Students Tackling Advanced Research) Scholar.
STAR is a great way for first-year students upon completion of their freshman year to learn new skills for their major at the hands of well-known Drexel professors, have great research opportunities, and have immersive experiences in finding, researching, and presenting topics in their studies.
Several STAR scholar alums shared their stories about why they chose STAR and all the great experiences they received through the program.
A second-year Biomedical Engineering student and I discussed how STAR boosted her potential for growing in her major’s field.
“How has STAR impacted your way of thinking as a potential researcher in the field you want to go into?” I asked.
“I’ve definitely learned a lot of new skills, both inside and outside of the lab. I’ve been able to get better at lab skills that are essential for my research, such as dissecting fly brains. I’ve also gotten a lot more experience with presenting my research to different types of audiences. It’s important to be able to convey what I’m investigating to both an average person or an expert in my field.”
“How do you plan to apply the skills you learned in this program to future courses or co-op opportunities?” I replied.
“I’ll be able to apply the skills I’ve gained by writing my research abstract as well as presenting my research in different ways to my future professional goals. In any profession, effective communication is essential, and that’s something a program like STAR forces you to develop.”
“What advice could you give students thinking about wanting to apply to STAR?” I added.
“Reach out to those around you – whether you have a professor whose research you’re interested or know a student that works in a lab, always reach out and ask questions. In my personal experience, faculty at Drexel are very willing to mentor students that are excited to learn. Resources like UREP also make research opportunities incredibly accessible to Drexel students.”
Besides the fact that participating in STAR research can give you great professional opportunities, it can also provide great learning experiences not just at Drexel but also the privilege to do research at universities and institutions in other countries.
A second-year Mechanical Engineering major shared with me how his STAR study required him and his fellow scholar to briefly move to a different university to complete his research.
“Which university did you travel to?” I asked.
“I went to Chennai, as part of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and spent 10 weeks in the residence halls.”
“Despite the culture shock how were you supported in your research being in that new environment?” I replied.
“The academic atmosphere there is incredible, the PhD scholars we worked with opened our eyes to the possibilities we can explore [within] ourselves!”
“Did you gain double the experience by going abroad for this project?” I added.
“For sure, I feel like apart from developing the research acumen and academic acumen that comes with STAR, we also developed as people through all the lived experiences we had, being in a different environment, immersed in a different culture, and as a result, I had a whole year’s of experience within two months.”
It’s not just the satisfaction of learning new skills and having new experiences that come with STAR, but also the personal satisfaction of researching a topic a STAR scholar could be passionate about.
A second-year data science student shared with me how her interest in exploring the inner workings behind TikTok correlated with the project she took on of exploring harassment on the app.
“What gave you the idea to explore this topic?” I asked.
“I’ve already been interested in TikTok in the past. I actually did a paper on it for my communications class. I talked about why it’s the best platform for businesses to use, and the biggest thing was that it has such an interesting algorithm [which] pushes videos to people in a great way, and if you have a business, you can very easily push a video onto people. After being interested in TikTok because of that, I decided to look into harassment on it.
“What is the most important thing you learned from this project?” I replied.
“I would say, I learned not to be so scared of trial and error. When I was doing different things for this project or making [my] poster, I didn’t expect to have so much trial and error, [and] I thought that after one look over, I’ll be done, but we kept working and working, on this poster on different things, and making it even better.”
“Does this relate to your professional goals in any way?” I added.
“Yes, I wanted to know research is something I want to do in the future, and I did really like this experience, so I definitely want to do more.”
Research opportunities can bring a wide variety of experiences to students, but for the STAR program, it can really help first-year students get a leg up on skills they can apply for their co-op, subjects they could explore, and introduce new places where research can be conducted besides the Drexel campus.
If students feel conflicted about applying for STAR, they should think twice about being hesitant. They could miss out on the chance to be more hands-on and expansive with their education beyond the classroom. You can never know when skills learned from a research program can come in handy for any opportunity that comes their way.