In this spotlight John Byrd (MSU) reflects on his experience with PROSPECT. He shares how the project supported his academic growth, highlight his most rewarding moments and offer advice to fellow undergraduate interested in research.
1. How did working on the PROSPECT grant contribute to your academic growth? What was the most enjoyable aspect of your research experience?
PROSPECT really helped me grow Academically through showing me how to make large scale collaborations work well. The balance of team-building and productivity feels hard to get right, but PROSPECT does it so well. Getting to talk and work with such incredible people from so many different places and backgrounds really helped shape not just my thoughts around my research but the purpose of why I want to do this work in the first place: to support transfer students.
The most enjoyable aspect of my research experience was getting to participate in site visits and see all the amazing ways S-STEMs are supporting their students. It can be easy to lose the thread so to speak when trying to do such complicated work of supporting students across so many different institutions, in different places. Despite all of that, everyone I interacted with shared the goal of supporting transfer students in achieving their goals. Seeing all of the different ways students are supported made me so excited to be a part of this research.
2. What was your favorite or most rewarding moment working on the project?
Getting to talk with the students during site visits was the most rewarding thing for me. Hearing about how much their S-STEM programs meant to them and helped them through. It feels very rewarding to work on a project that is focused on partnerships that do such good work.
3. How was your experience leading/co-leading interviews during the site visits?
Being a part of the interview process for the site visits was a great experience. On top of the great learning experience of how to conduct interviews it was wonderful to get to hear how passionate people are about their roles in their S-STEMs. I really got the sense that S-STEM partnerships can have a huge impact on the partners themselves as well as the students.
4. What advice would you give to other graduate students who are interested in getting involved in grant-funded research?
Give it a try! You won’t know if its really for you until you get involved, and all you really need to do to get involved is ask! Research can often be very flexible about time commitments depending on the program.
5. What’s next for you?
I am hoping to pursue a more Computational PhD, hopefully in Europe! I am still actively applying, so I’m not exactly sure where I’ll end up next.