Faculty-Student Collaborations Foster Mentoring & Achievement
Whether it is to boost their resumes for employment or curricula vitae for graduate school, students who engage in faculty-student collaborative work through research, scholarship and other creative endeavors are taking their first steps to success.
Beyond career preparative benefits, these experiences offer students key learning opportunities. Through BW's Undergraduate Research and Creative Studies (URSC) program, students can delve into projects within their major or extend their studies to related and even unrelated fields.
URSC offers opportunities year-round to students of all majors. In some cases, projects include precise laboratory work where students and faculty probe complex scientific issues through research studies-the findings of which may later be published in scholarly journals and/or be presented at prestigious conferences.
Other projects may involve students and faculty collaborating in the creation of original work, which may be utilized for theatre productions, art shows, Conservatory programs or similar activities.
Students also may go off campus to engage in real-world studies-with topics ranging from developing violence intervention programs for elementary school students to identifying invertebrate species on a nature preserve.
Through URSC, students can:
- Build competencies at the undergraduate level that sometimes can be likened to those gained at graduate school
- Utilize collaborative and collective approaches to learning that simulate real-world situations where teamwork can be crucial to success
- Clarify personal, professional and career goals by enabling them to sample tracks of study
- Increase their level of self-reliance, confidence and skills
- Foster ongoing opportunities for faculty-student mentoring-a relationship that can be beneficial as a student progresses through BW and then seeks employment or graduate school admittance