Applications for participation in the 2018 Undergraduate Student Symposium (USS) are open for interested students in any discipline. This annual event was created 18 years ago by faculty to encourage undergraduate students to participate in research and showcase work they were doing outside the classroom. The USS is designed for students of all majors and disciplines and offers a variety of mediums to present their work.
Don Rosenblum, dean of Farquhar Honors College, said, “Students can [present] research through an [oral] presentation, through a poster … a paper they’ve written. The film festival is the third dimension of that. As part of the symposium we recognize student scholarship in the arts and other fields. Any kind of knowledge in any of these disciplines is celebrated.”
According to Rosenblum, as students present their research, they often interact and make connections with professors, and create new relationships for possible future mentors and internships. Keerthi Thallapureddy, senior biology major in Farquhar Honors College, has participated in USS for the past two years and gained experience outside the classroom through this unique opportunity.
Thallapureddy said, “For me, I participated in [USS] when I was a freshman and a professor who attended reached out to me in class the following year. She recommended [I] apply to a summer research program at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Because of the symposium, I was able to apply to the program and I learned a lot while I was there. It prepared me for another presentation at MD Anderson. It helped me learn how to build confidence and learn how to translate your research to a wider audience and that’s exactly what the symposium does.”
“The experience at USS is often a precursor to an interview for medical school or an interview for graduate studies. It builds a sense of confidence and [students] learn to articulate succinctly, which is an incredible skill.”- Don Rosenblum
Part of the application process involves completion of CITI training, which is important to the research process, especially when involving human subjects. The CITI training program is built to protect and demonstrate that research has followed the permissions and adequate protocols required for accurate and verifiable research.
“Part of USS is to showcase what they are doing in their research, but it’s to also teach them how to be researchers,” Rosenblum said. “These protocols are used to protect how this research is done.”
This year’s keynote speaker is Daniel Dawes, a health policy lawyer. Dawese will speak about his experiences in the field and in college as he was once an undergraduate at NSU.
The symposium will be held on April 6 in the Alvin Sherman Library. All student and faculty are welcome to attend and experience this opportunity to learn about research and other works that students have been involved in.
