When is the last time one of your professors encouraged you to research, write and publish your own academic article as an undergrad? A few semesters ago? Never?
If you’re like me, you’ve never even considered writing and publishing your academic work. On the one hand you’re probably too busy with classes, but on the other –which is a shame to admit– you didn’t even KNOW you could publish in academic journals!
Publishing as an undergrad can have startling benefits Shockingly it can even be more useful than having a Bachelor’s degree, a 4.0 GPA and a recommendation letter, according to The West Georgian.
Additionally if you’re an English major or any other major that is writing-intensive, publishing academic work will show that you’re willing to work independently and that you have genuine interest in what you’re studying.
It can also be more useful to majors that aren’t already writing-intensive, such as science majors, which will most likely enter a field in which their work must be peer-reviewed.
But I was surprised to see Georgia State’s recent release about 11 students being honored for their academic work at the Undergraduate Research Conference on April 14.
Normally, individual academic achievements are not newsworthy, but the winners at this conference deserve all the recognition they can get because they exhibit something many students (like myself) don’t have–the self-motivation.to seek and discover these types of opportunities.
As an English major, I couldn’t tell you how often I’ve had an idea for a scholarly dissection of the themes and motifs of the works of some of my favorite authors, but I never took the initiative to discover how to write such papers, much less how to publish them.
And though I blame myself for this first and foremost, I can’t help but think back over all the English classes I’ve taken and wonder why these opportunities were never mentioned.
That isn’t to say that good writing, researching, citing and compiling bibliographies has not been taught in my English classes, but teachers have been strangely silent about publishing.
The Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly (CUR Quarterly) reported a survey of three groups of alumni of a research institution: those who researched as part of a university program, those who researched on their own or with a faculty member, and those who did not participate in research at all.
Between 71 and 80 percent of the graduates in the first two groups went on to graduate school, making those who participated in research 10 to 20 percent more likely to go on to graduate school.
In addition to this, students reported more satisfaction in their undergraduate careers and (understandably) more motivation to go on and publish more academic work.
That’s all well and good, but where does a student start? All of these benefits sound enticing, but how does one get from point A to point B, so to speak?
There is a simple solution: simply talk to your professors. I mentioned before that the problem does not necessarily lie in the hands of the school administration, but in the self-motivation of students. Maybe you want to publish, but don’t know how to go about doing so, like me.
There is good evidence that undergraduate publishing can be a great benefit for student’s careers and overall satisfaction with their school experience. It’s not necessarily important that Georgia State makes more effort to teach students how to research, only that they take steps to raise awareness of what a great opportunity it is.
