A portion of the grant funding has gone toward purchasing a workstation with a high-powered computer for student research use.
“When we actually do the full modeling, we'll do it on this workstation because it's going to require lots of different iterations. We've designed it to be able to handle complex calculations and large data sets,” Lynch said. “It's going to be really nice for a lot of different research projects in the department.”
Grulick and McBride can benefit from the use of the new workstation, as well as other students completing research in the astronomy program, now and in the future.
Both Lynch and Wake underpin the importance of undergraduate research to learning key skills like data analysis, writing a grant proposal, presenting research, or coding and working with software.
“No matter what Abby does, if she goes to graduate school, if she goes into industry, you will need to know how to code,” Lynch said. “Learning those coding skills, applying them and just being able to sit and play with computer code to figure it out is really great experience and will benefit her throughout her career.”
Undergoing the research process without the stakes of determining a long-term thesis allows the students a trial period to determine their aptitude for it.
“Doing this undergraduate research is crucial for them to understand whether it really is something they like to do and whether it's something that suits their abilities,” Wake said. “It's self-directed and it's frustrating. It takes a long time. Half the time it doesn't work. You've got to be prepared to bang your head against it until you find the solution.”
But, Lynch said, with enough preserverance comes the thrill of discovery.
“I found that if you're interested in the subject enough, you'll keep doing it. Trying to maintain that interest and that passion is hard when you get to these stumbling blocks,” Lynch said. “But just remember that there is something that's going to happen that's going to be exciting.”