FIRST-YEAR RESEARCHER Research is a crucial part of any college student’s undergraduate experience. It can boost your resume, deepen your knowledge of a specific field and help you explore a future career path. But as a first-year student at UF, I didn’t know how to get involved in what I knew could be a great opportunity. To help answer this question, I decided to interview first-year students who are already involved in research about how they found a project and what research has taught them so far. This article is the first in a three-part series on first-year researchers, specifically in the Honors Program. Throughout interviewing these intelligent and creative students, I was amazed at the fascinating research that they’re conducting in only their first year of college. I hope that this series can inspire and motivate others to get involved on campus and to find research opportunities in fields that they’re passionate about. My first interview was with Amy Lao, a first-year Honors student who is majoring in music and art history. Outside of research, she enjoys making croissants and tiered cakes. Q: What kind of research do you do? A: I’m in the University Research Scholars Program and it helped get me interested in undergraduate research. So I applied for the Emerging Scholars Program and found a faculty mentor around November of 2019. Her name is Dr. Laura Dallman, and she’s a musicologist. I actually met her
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through a board I was on last semester (the College of the Arts Meta-Strategy Board, specifically in the Curriculum Working Group). I was with five other UF faculty arts members and we created a five-year plan for the College of the Arts’ curriculum moving forward. Through working with all of them, I got to know Dr. Dallman really well and I went to her office and said, “Hey, there’s this Emerging Scholars opportunity and I’d really like to do some research under you.” She’s really into new orchestra programming and how we can present classical music in new ways that are more interesting to people and more fresh. Our research project is looking into 21st century symphony programming and how orchestras are finding different ways to implement visual aspects such as displaying paintings or using projections to enhance the music experience while also making classical music more accessible to the general public. The University Research Scholars Program is a four-year program where students are exposed to different opportunities that help them build their research skills, including researchcentered courses and peer mentoring. The Emerging Scholars Program helps first- or second-years with no previous research experience to conduct a research project with the help of a faculty mentor. This program culminates in the undergraduates presenting at the University of Florida Undergraduate Research Symposium.