The Aresty Research Center is dedicated to undergraduate research. They have several different programs you can apply to at any time during your college career. I know several students who did summer research programs following their first year at RU. The Aresty-Byrne Program is actually dedicated to giving first-year students hands-on research experience while taking a Byrne Seminar.
Aresty also helps students find faculty mentors and funding for their research. Most of the students in these programs display their research findings at the Aresty Undergraduate Research Symposium in the spring. The Symposium is a combination of poster presentations and panel discussions, usually when a large number of student-researchers were involved. I did not participate in any Aresty Programs during my four years at Rutgers, but I did present my senior thesis at the Symposium. It was a great culmination to my two-year research project!
This was the design of my poster:
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| It might seem small, but Aresty printed it on a 3' by 4' poster, which was very impressive looking. |
There are other opportunities to participate in research outside Aresty. Many professors look for research assistants in the summer and during the school year. You don't need to apply to Aresty to work with them. If you're interested in the research one of your professor is conducting, you can always ask about opportunities to work with them. You can also look for summer jobs working in labs and research facilities on campus. There are so many to choose from, depending on what your interests are. One of the centers I toured at my summer job (Douglass Science Institute Resident Assistant) was the Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience, where they research spinal cord injuries.
There is also the option to write a senior thesis. Most of the time students write theses for departmental honors, so the project type depends on your major or minor. Usually students can choose their own topic, but sometimes it depends on the research of your faculty advisor.
I took the opportunity to write an Interdisciplinary Honors Thesis with the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) Honors Program. This was a really neat project because I picked the topic myself and tied it to quite a few disciplines. The downside of all independent research is you have to find your own advisors, which can be really tough, but don't be afraid to asks your professors! I talked to a bunch of people about advising my project. Unfortunately the one professor I had in geography was on sabbatical when I started my research, but he recommended another professor who was absolutely amazing and helped me identify a secondary advisor in Art History. (Only interdisciplinary theses require two advisors because they are not completed in multiple disciplines.)
The topic I finally settled on was "The Urban Morphology of the Italian Piazza: A Case Study of Ferrara, Italy." I wanted to relate my research to my two majors (Italian and European Studies) and to incorporate my study abroad experience. My thesis was inspired by one of the classes I took for European Studies about the geography of Europe. I researched four piazzas in Ferrara, Italy, where I studied abroad. I was able to incorporate most of my ethnographic observations and many of my personal photographs into my final draft, which is now in the Honors Program collection as well as the Alexander Library Archives. (Departmental theses are stored in their departments.)
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