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10 March 2010
Class sping '10!
Ah! So lately I’ve been pretty busy so it’s been a while since I posted. Soo much has happened. So spring semester is in full swing and almost halfway over and I have already done so much.
This semester I’m enrolled in 16 units (Chem 3B, 3BL, Physics 8B, Bio 1B and NST 199) and filled to the brim with sciences classes. So far this semester includes the most amount of class work (40 hours/week) since all my classes have labs, I have chem. study groups and NST 199, which is research is about 14 hours of work a week. At first it seemed impossible, but now I think I got the groove of things and it seems actually weird to have a lot of free time and I usually end up wasting it by sleeping or something. So I want to take some time telling about my experience in these classes so far.
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Posted by Fabian Collazo at 2:26 | Permalink
If you plan on going to grad school or anywhere else after college than something that would be very helpful to ones application would be research experience. Since Cal loves us dearly they made URAP! Yay URAP! Well URAP basically is a website with a bunch of descriptions for research positions offered by professors and to get the position you have to fill out a URAP application, which includes a statement of purpose that is around 400 words each. In order to minimize shopping they restrict you to applying to 3 internships, which is bad for me because I have to pick 3 out of the 4 I want. Since URAP is open to all UC Berkeley students than the turn out tends to be really good for bio spots with some openings receiving up to hundreds of responses. So check it out!
http://research.berkeley.edu/urap/
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Posted by Fabian Collazo at 7:05 | Permalink
17 August 2009
Plans for Fall
So as summer is coming to a close I am preparing for fall 2009 and all its difficulties grrr. I’m currently planning to take Bio 1A/L, Physics 8A, Near Eastern Studies 18 and EALC 105. I’m pretty scared for Bio as I have heard plenty of rumors about the labs and professors and as a Bio lover I’m freaking out. Even though I want to take physics I am not enrolled and am like hawk status checking the schedule every minute to see if anybody has dropped. Haha its’ even on my favorites for maximum speed. NES 18 is about ancient Egypt and I have heard is a rather chill class and the material seems rather interesting. EALC 105 is a film class that I am taking with a friend purely for fun and it is suppose to be easy and who doesn’t want to learn about movies?
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Posted by Fabian Collazo at 7:26 | Permalink
01 July 2009
Broadening Horizons
With the ever competitive job market, having an edge is essential. A programmer with creative design experience, a physicist with political science aspirations, a polyglot with a teaching degree-having a little something extra, it certainly can't hurt.
Planning out my college courses for my brief two year stint here, I realize I've got a bit of extra space. I could:
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Posted by Josephine Wong at 3:42 | Permalink
09 May 2009
Human Subject Protocol
I'd just like to give fair warning to those of you who may potentially make the same horrible mistake as me. In case you plan on doing research that involves other human beings, you must apply for Human Subject Protocol. It essentially is an approval of your research in the interest of participant privacy and safety. You can get more info at the following website but you must do this before starting your research. I made the fatal mistake of not figuring this vital step out until after.
http://www.lbl.gov/ehs/health_services/harc/hsc.shtml#Human subjects protocols at LBNL
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Posted by Maria at 3:26 | Permalink
27 March 2009
My First Course Recommendation
After posting the
Money and Behavior story earlier this week, I began thinking about my relationship with
Psychology and Economics. I was first "formally" exposed to the subject after reading
The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Shwartz. Before picking up this book, I often thought about my behavior in terms of the expectations I took on and how those expectations shaped my subsequent feelings after certain events. The course that really expanded my exposure to and solidified my understanding of what is sometimes called
Behavioral Economics was Economics 119 with Professor Botond Koszegi. I definitely recommend this course for anyone who is interested in behavior. A quote from the syllabus:
[Psychology and Economics] is not an easy field to define, but those who sympathize with it tend to share the belief that economists should aspire to making assumptions about humans that are as realistic as possible, and hence that we should develop methods and habits of mind to learn what is psychologically realistic.
So if you're looking for an interesting economics course without all the math, definitely have a look at this one. Unfortunately, I don't see it being offered in Fall 2009 (I took it in Fall 2008), but keep your eyes peeled. It may inspire a Senior Thesis, Honors, or other Research Project! The course covers: Reference-Dependent Preferences, Choice over Time, Heuristics and Biases, Behavioral Game Theory, and Social Preferences.
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Posted by Juan at 2:34 | Permalink
13 December 2008
Hit the ground running
This entire semester I've been worried about being able to figure out what's going to happen after I graduate in 2 years. And in the rush of madness between keeping up with classwork, papers, and exams, I've been searching for ways to get my feet wet in my areas of interest. Luckily, I can say I've succeeded in finding such opportunities. Remembering that my interests are environmental education, restoration work, and native plants, I've got an internship at the Richmond Field Station which encompasses the latter two, I will be volunteering at the Jepson Herbarium to learn more about native plants, and I will be working with a local non-profit on educating high school students about restoration and then actually taking them out into the field to apply what we taught them in the classroom. Check on all three!
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Posted by Maria at 2:05 | Permalink
25 April 2008
Being a Transfer Student and Research
Here's my experience with doing research at Cal as a transfer student. I applied to SPUR to find a faculty project. I got the position but I definitely felt at a disadvantage while being interviewed. The first question: What research projects have you worked on at Cal? I'm thinking, well I've only been here for 4 months and they expect me to have a vast list of skills? Yes they do, fortunate for me I had experience doing a research class at DVC (the jc I went to). The next question: Could we get an email address to ask for a letter of recommendation? I'm thinking, in four months I'm expected to be buddy buddy enough with a professor to be asking him/her to take out of their busy schedule to write me a letter or rec? Yes they do. Fortunately for me again, I spent a lot of time in one of my professor’s office hours. The bottom line: If you're going to do research when you get to Berkeley you better spend that first semester doing all you can to boost your resume. Some things you can do: volunteer in a professor’s research and get to know at least one of your professors so you can ask them for a letter of recommendation.
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Posted by Marissa Ponder at 1:16 | Permalink
16 March 2008
Pizza, Ping Pong, and Air Hockey
Have you ever heard of BERC? It stands for the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative, a 2-year old graduate student club that brings together people interested in energy, climate change, and sustainability. With over 400 graduate student members, the most active mailserv I've ever seen, and creator of the huge UC Energy Symposium that just went down on March 7th, I always thought it was a shame they didn't have a place for undergraduates. It's going to change this week:
**Cheese Board** Pizza, Ping Pong, and Air Hockey
Wednesday March 19th, 5pm-6:30 pm
Mulford, Room 260, CNR Student Resource Center
As a loyal reader of Fresh Faces, you're invited to the BERC Undergrad Kickoff Night! We want to have a fun, relaxing, time while introducing undergrads to the incredible opportunities and especially the community that is BERC. This event is for EVERYONE, grad students, undergrads, faculty and staff. There is no agenda, come eat, drink, be merry, and practice your leisure sports because the competition will be fierce.
The event will be organized by Harris Cohn (CRS) and I (EEP) who were appointed VPs of BERC Undergrad earlier this year. The title is still fuzzy, but our role isn't. Our plan is to first
create a mentoring program where undergraduates interested in energy, climate change, and sustainability, can pair up with graduates students in business, law, engineering, public policy, and the many sciences: social, physical, biological, & environmental. Second, we're looking for sophomores or juniors who might be interested in taking over our role and developing something larger for future years -- like a BERC study abroad program, or renewable energy projects in developing countries.
Feel free to forward this announcement to your friends.
Drop us a line if you have any questions. We're looking forward to it, hope to see you there!
Harris Cohn (harriscohn@gmail.com) and Tay Feder (tfeder@gmail.com)
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Posted by Tay Feder at 1:15 | Permalink
11 March 2008
Finally, some quality research!
I am extremely excited because I am going to be starting medical research at Kaiser Hospital! I will be assigned a few patients in a Crohn's Disease Study to which I have to perform various tasks including: calling patients during the study and making sure they are maintaining their medications and not taking new forms that may affect the study, sending their blood for lab work and then analyzing the data, preparing patients for surgery and observing the procedure, maintaining patient medical records and study questionnaire, working with the GI surgeon to investigate trends in the medications/study with the patients, and last but certainly not least writing a final report about the study for a possibility for publication to the study sponsor aka the pharmaceutical company. I am really thrilled about this position because this will be lab work in my area of interest instead of doing lab work in which I am preparing mice or running DNA strips. In addition, this research will help me determine whether I want to go into medical school to become a doctor or to become part of the growing medical research field. (And of course I am really excited because this is going to look fantastic on my resume!)
If you have any questions about the work I'll be doing (i have to read a ton of material about Crohn's Disease, study procedure, etc) feel free to ask!
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Posted by Rola Abduljabar Rabah at 0:59 | Permalink
05 February 2008
undergraduate research
So, I went to a undergrad research workshop yesterday. It was very informative. Before I went in, I had no idea why and how important doing research was, besides the fact that it looked good on a resume:). Anyway, as I was handed thick packets of info, I learned from others great ways to find a research topic. First off, though, you need to find a mentor. You can either find one first and then brainstorm topics, or have a research proposal in mind then find a mentor. Good hints I heard were that setting a specified number of hours to how much time your mentor would be devoting to you is a good indicator to how well you and the mentor will be able to make the best out of your research.
Research is a great opportunity to explore your interests and it's exciting- shows how motivated you are and how interested you are in your major. It shows you took initiative and of course, it's more of a hands-on application type of work, rather than reading dryly out of a textbook and going to lectures. Other tactics/alternatives I found out:
1. senior honor thesis- shows up on transcript
2. join OUR very own CNR undergrad research SPUR
3. URAP-i heard a rumor that they like junior transfers a lot!!
4. to find out what research you even want to do, start taking classes you are interested in. Perhaps, then, you can find a potential research topic!
Hope this helps to all the freshman/sophomores interested in undergrad research! I know it helped me!
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Posted by Casey Wang at 0:02 | Permalink
15 January 2008
Busy Day in Oxford, Ohio
Today I visited with a large portion of the Botany faculty at Miami University of Ohio. This is one of the schools to which I have applied for graduate school. You can visit their Botany website here:
http://www.cas.muohio.edu/botany/
Tom toured the little town and took photos while I met with faculty.
My schedule for today:
8:45am - Hotel pick-up by Dr. Prem Kumar (Post-doc in Dr. Kiss' lab)
9:00am - Dr. Linda E. Watson (Botany department chair)
9:30am - Dr. John Kiss (NASA-funded space Botany)
10:30am - Dr. R. James Hickey (fern systematist)
11:00am - Dr. Mike Vincent (herbarium curator)
11:30am - Dr. Quinn Li (genetics)
noon - Lunch with Prem Kumar (Post-doc for Dr. Kiss' lab) and Neela Kumar (PhD student Dr. Kiss' lab, vegetarian)
1:30pm - Dr. Richard Edelmann (electron and light microscopy specialist)
2:00pm - Dr. Nik Money - (Mycologist)
2:30pm - Dr. Beth Schussler (Biological sciences education researcher)
3:00pm - Dr. David Gorchov (Ecology)
3:30-5:15pm - Meet with Tom and discuss day.
5:30pm - Driving tour of campus with Dr. Kiss (Tom, too)
6:00pm - Dinner with Dr. Kiss (Tom, too)
The weather was cold, but not at all unbearable. Dreary in the morning, clear blue skies in the afternoon. People asked me often my impression of the weather. It was pretty. I liked watching the little flurries of snow caught up by the breeze.
Impressions of the program:
Well-established Botany program. Knowledgeable staff. Focus on teaching. Kind people.
Dr. Kiss is my favorite faculty member. His research is fascinating. The folks in his lab are kind and fun.
Drawbacks of the program:
May not be easy to petition into PhD program. Many encourage you to complete your master's, then move on to PhD.
Described by one graduate student as having "low expectations" (challenged by other students I met, who found it quite difficult to juggle teaching, their own coursework, and research)
Pluses:
Excellent funding
Diverse coursework offerings
Gentle people
Fun, fairly isolated college town, but driving distance from Cincinnati and Dayton.
I like it.
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Posted by Christina at 7:46 | Permalink
