We had a poster session in the morning, followed by luncheon with award ceremony.
We took an undergraduate student from North Carolina in the lab from 5/21 to 7/13/18. The student worked on his project with our graduate research assistant. I functioned as supervisor and mentor.
The student turned out to be pretty good. He was quick at understanding critical points, and also was decent at executing experimental procedures. Thanks to him, we obtained interesting pilot data that we plan to develop to a publication.
One day earlier, 7/12 Thursday was the day for poster presentation contest, which was for all 57 students in all student research programs combined.
There were 10 students for SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research Experience), 34 students for INBRE (IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence), 5 students for NARCH (Native American Research Centers for Health), and 7 students for CURE (Cancer Undergraduate Research Experience).
In the contest, poster was presented in 4 minutes by each student, and the presentation was judged by graduate school students.
The programs were designed to provide scientific research experience in the lab and poster presentation opportunity at the end. The hosting lab were provided with some research budget, and students with some stipend.
Overall, such programs offer great opportunity for students.
Ideas are cheap. We know many hypotheses/ideas turn out to be untrue. Real training in research science concerns how to test hypothesis and realize an idea. There is no place for someone who only dreams and floats cheap ideas without proving them. Hands-on experience gives some means to test a hypothesis and realize an idea.
After all, science is still show and tell.
I like win-win situation. With pilot results he obtained, this year's program was a win for us, too.
