Spring 2010: Research Opportunity for Undergraduates

The goal of this effort was to engage a broader range of undergraduates (beyond those with the highest grades) in research, and to document what strategies work and where the difficulties lie in providing that broader population a meaningful undergraduate research experience. This then may lead to a more formalized undergrad research program in the department (if we decide we want to go that way), or more informally to some shared insights. Here I document as completely as possible what I have learned. Many of these things are well known to those with more experience, but I made no attempt to separate my naiveté from the presentation of the results. Those with limited time may wish to initially focus only on those passages marked in cyan italic to determine whether there is anything worthy of their closer attention