DAPHNE JOHN: I think that 
for an undergraduate student
today, the best choice for 
doing research, if you really
want to be mentored and have 
a relationship with a faculty
member who does research, does 
teaching, and has honestly
the time to spend and the 
motivation to spend with you,
the place to do it is 
a liberal arts school.
I can't imagine 
being a student
interested in doing 
research and going anywhere
but a liberal arts college.
I have several students who 
started their first year
in my lab, first semester 
of their first year.
They then are getting 
four years and often
some summers of very 
focused research.
I wasn't given 
just the grunt work.
I was asked to help collect 
samples and ask to help mark
locations and things like that.
And I really got 
to learn about what
happens in Oberlin College--
what the typical 
curriculum is like
and what to expect 
from professors.
But then I also got to learn 
about Amanda as a person.
Students have that opportunity 
to be in classes where
professors are teaching in areas 
that we feel passionate about,
that we're currently 
doing research in,
but also being able 
to be supported
in doing the research 
that they want to do
and things that are totally 
different than what we do.
ELKA LEE-SHAPIRO: 
Research on David Yeo
led to a lot of really 
cool opportunities.
As well as working as 
a curatorial assistant
at the Alamo art 
museum in Asian art,
a supervisor approached 
me with the prospect
of doing my own 
show on my research
subject, Asian-American Art.
Through that I was able 
to independently organize
my own show and see 
the questions that I
was engaging with come to 
life in the form of a show
with real art objects.
They really become 
true collaborators.
They have really awesome 
ideas about the project,
and they ask me hard questions 
that I didn't think about.
And that's the best 
part about working
with undergraduate 
researchers is
when they get really 
invested in the project
and take it on their own.
When students and I 
do research together,
we're actually building 
something together.
And students get credit for it.
They get credit in the book.
They get credit if 
it's an article.
They get credit.
And they also get that 
sense of "Oh yeah.
I've been part of that."
My capstone is a film.
And within the film I'm trying 
to incorporate music and dance
and painting woven 
together by a poem.
Getting feedback from Ann, who's 
focused in dance and Sarah,
who's focused in painting--
feedback on a film--
allows me to get a 
different perspective.
And I really like 
meeting with both
them because there's actually 
a lot of overlap on what they
connect to or the moments 
that they want extended.
One of the things I've learned 
about the research experience
is that it is not cookie cutter.
The ability to do work here 
with individualized instruction
just allows for these 
projects to grow and blossom
in a way that is harder for 
them to do if you don't get
as much individual mentoring.
Having mentors 
that are invested
and that care about you and 
how the work affects you,
those mentors are the people 
that you carry with you
throughout your life.
And you remember the way 
they believed in you,
and it just makes you believe 
in yourself a bit more.
The biggest impact 
from my research
is the student training.
Whether they go on in geology 
or medicine or library science,
they're learning 
to think critically
and analyze data and 
ask good questions
and draw interpretations.
Oberlin's community is so 
unique and because it's small
and because the 
students are so--
I would say vibrant.
And they really want to learn.
They really want to contribute.
And professors are 
willing to allow
students to bring them into 
their lives and trust them.
For me it definitely helps 
enforce that STEM is really
a field that I want to 
go into because I've
had all these opportunities.
Everything that we're teaching 
you in the research process,
whether it be in the 
humanities or social sciences
or STEM fields, is about 
thinking, processing, refining,
revisiting, developing, 
good work habits,
managing your time, knowing your 
audience, and knowing yourself.
We're here then to 
help students learn
how to have skills 
that are going to be
translatable in the real world.
Oberlin has a way 
of seeing the world
and bringing that to campus and 
also projecting you back out.
I wouldn't be the 
person I am today
if it wasn't for those 
experiences that I
had with research, 
with my community work,
with my classes.
I'm grateful for 
those experiences.
And I don't think 
I would have been
able to learn as much as I 
did about the world and myself
if I did come here.
