Every year towards the end of the winter semester University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) students are invited to showcase their faculty-supervised research projects on Student Research Day.
On Thursday (March 28) academics, students, family, friends and the community explored the research of a variety of topics in different disciplines.
The students can present a two-minute micro-lecture on their research and set up a poster of their work to field questions. The posters are judged by faculty on research rigour and overall presentation. The top scoring students in over 10 categories each receive an award and $200 in prize money. All students who participate have an impressive piece of work to add to their resume, apply to graduate school and present at future conferences.
The experience is not mandatory for undergraduate or graduate students to complete, but it allows students to have a valuable professional experience.
“The micro-lecture was a great opportunity to talk in front of many people and share learning experiences,” psychology student Ekam Banipal said.
Banipal began research on her project about examining post-competition changes in mood, arousal and stress a year ago. Fellow psychology student Emily Whittaker studied feedback dynamics in self-control.
“You spend four years doing papers and researching all of these kinds of studies, but you never actually know what goes into it until you do it yourself,” Whittaker said. “One of the biggest things I got from this was being able to understand what goes into the research that I read as part of my degree.”