This summer, our Graduate Research Assistant, Angela Vichitbandha (UNL), participated in a research journey with our team. In this Q&A, she shares her reflections on the experience, talking about the new challenges, what she learned along the way, and rewarding moments that made her experience memorable.
1. What sparkled your interest in joining PROSPECT and how would you describe your research focus this summer?
I'm considering studying math education for my PhD since I think it (and education more broadly) is an important, valuable area of work. It is not something I have experience with, however, so I wanted to get an idea of what it is like. I primarily focused on taking existing data (for example, interviews and proposals) and identifying the key information we want to communicate. Then we can summarize that key information in a way that our target audience can process and understand much quicker and easier compared to if we tried giving them dozens of pages of raw data.
2. Was there anything surprising or unexpected in what you learned?
I think the variety of research and people involved even within a single program like PROSPECT was the most surprising to me. I primarily worked on summarization tasks, but also did some work with a sub-team that is figuring out how they want to set up surveys that students will take in the future and there's several other sub-teams too. The people working on PROSPECT also come from many different institutions and come from a wide variety of disciplines.
3. What was the most enjoyable aspect of your research experience?
Learning about these programs and the ways they're helping students has been very enjoyable. Without this experience, it's unlikely I would have ever learned about those at other institutions or know more than the very basics of the one at my own institution.
4. How has this experience shaped your thinking about research and how do you think it will contribute to your professional journey?
This experience really emphasized the value of working with people from a wide variety of backgrounds. This is something I've been aware of for a long time, but I don't think I've really seen how true it is until now. Regardless of where I end up, I hope that this will encourage me to continue seeking such opportunities in the future.
5. What advice would you give a student considering a summer research experience, and why (or why not) would you recommend it?
I think that if you're interested in the idea of doing summer research, there's a pretty good chance that it would be a good experience for you. Having a variety of experiences is beneficial for life in general in my opinion and on a practical note, it's useful to have personal knowledge of what something is like when you're trying to decide what to do next.