Many times we take for granted the active research community at Mississippi State University. In reality, MSU’s research community is much more active than many other major universities’ – just last August MSU ranked No. 71 in a Washington Monthly ranking of schools based on social mobility, research and service.
To survey the research acumen pervading MSU’s campus, last year I interviewed several students and professors and the time has come to bring their voices into the open.
Reed Clay, freshman aerospace major, said of his experiences in high school that even the simplest of scientific research pursuits can be fun, and the act of discovering and learning fuels in him a sense of awe and wonder at the world in which we live.
“Science is fun! For about as long as I can remember, I’ve been absorbed in my interest in science. I suppose it’s just a symptom of my love of the word ‘why’,” Clay said, “The more you learn about the way things work and why they do what they do, the more amazing the world around you seems. I find scientific learning to be just as entertaining a pastime as some might find playing sports or watching television.”
MSU hosts a wonderful environment for this kind of a mindset – which I share with Clay – as many professors, instructors and graduate students are engaged in research across the board. Not just in science and engineering, but also in the literary and creative arts. Research at MSU belongs not just to the Ph.D. holders, rather, many undergraduates, including some of my good friends, actively pursue research in different departments. For example, I got into astronomical research with Angelle Tanner several years ago as a result of taking her descriptive astronomy course, and since then I have presented two poster presentations and gone to Chile to take data at an observatory there – real work with real researchers.
Undergraduate research does not just mean working for a professor and doing their busywork, there are also large interdisciplinary projects on campus like the EcoCAR2 team comprised of many students from across the school to enter in a nationwide competition over the course of several years. Hagan Walker, an engineering student and member of the EcoCAR2 team, said working on the team set him apart and gave him valuable experience in a cutting edge industry.
“Growing up, I’ve always wanted to be a part of something big, something that can benefit many people, and I believe with EcoCAR, I’ve found that calling,” Walker said. “Being an integral part of the EcoCAR2 team has allowed me to work directly with some of the most advanced automotive companies on projects that exceed some of my wildest imaginations … and because only a select few of us know the “ins and outs” of this side of the automotive industry, we become those prospective students that companies look to hire.”
In addition to research opportunities with professors in any department and large collaborations across campus, there is also the capstone element of presenting one’s research that Seth Oppenheimer of the Shackouls Honors College has pushed recently with the semiannual undergraduate research symposia. Oppenheimer said in a phone interview he puts together the symposium to encourage undergraduate research, which he also funds through the honors college in the summer.
“To encourage undergraduate research among all students if I can, I supervise our two local research symposia, one in the spring and one in the summer. I have the responsibility for evaluating, and I supervise our internal grant program for summer honors students. I try to help match students (with research advisers) who come to me who are interested in research,” Oppenheimer said.
Oppenheimer illuminated the prevalence of available research saying, “anything a faculty member does that is creative or (anything) that I would consider research, creative work is (available) under that roof.”
I have benefitted from seeing many different members of the MSU research community push the limits of their field of knowledge, be it a friend of mine analyzing Shakespeare, a dean uncovering Tolkein’s influences, a fellow science undergraduate investigating mammalian reproductive systems or my physics professors studying different classroom education techniques. MSU is an excellent learning environment, and we would all be remiss to pass it by without engaging with it and giving back in some form of research ourselves.
This brings me to how Clay went on to describe his usual research endeavors saying, “whenever I find myself wondering about a particular subject, I thoroughly explore the subject online until I’m satisfied that I have developed at least a rudimentary understanding of it. Usually, I end up finding several more topics of interest in the process.”
What Clay will soon realize is researchers go beyond online resources, and we all have this research community pervading MSU around us, just as available to us as the Internet, but considerably more useful and helpful than a limited Wikipedia article or inaccessible journal article.
