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Running head: A LATE UNDERGRAD’S FIRST COLLEGE RESEARCH

EXPERIENCE

A Late Undergrad’s First College Research Experience

Udoka Omenukor

Southern Methodist University

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A LATE UNDERGRAD’S FIRST COLLEGE RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

A Late Undergrad’s First College Research Experience

I wanted to gain some research experience in my junior of college. Luckily, I found

GATHER.

I realized late in my youth how much I love nutrition and how certain things affect our

health. I wanted to begin my path in this career. All I knew is that many of my pre-med peers

talk about research projects they’ve been a part of. Just in passing, doing research at some point

in your undergrad career always seemed to come about, so I thought I should get started if I

wanted a chance to pursue a career in nutrition.

I learned about Arch1 Lab. It looked like research involving cultural and genetic

differences in health. This could easily relate to nutrition, lifestyle and health. Perfect!

GATHER stands for Group Discussions Around Themes on Healthful Genetic Research.

It is kind of a preliminary to more research. Dr. Frierson set up discussion groups to find out how

people feel about genetic testing. This is important research so we can learn how to get

participants for later genetic testing studies.

Method

Subjects

At 63%, most of the subjects were female and the mean age was about 47. It was a

diverse group with almost 50% Black, 36% White, 8.5% Other, 1.5% Asian, 2.3 Pacific Islander,

2.3% American native and 19% Latino. Marital status was about 35% married, 42% single and

18% divorced. Refreshments, $50-$100, raffles, and blood work was used as incentives to get

participants according to Dr. Frierson’s report.

Design
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A LATE UNDERGRAD’S FIRST COLLEGE RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

It seems to be a relaxed design with Dr. Frierson leading the discussion. She asks a

question related to biobanking and asks the participants to give their thoughts. Then, when it

seems that everyone has put in their 2 cents, she will ask another question. When the topic start

getting off topic, Dr. Frierson brings it back to the topic of feelings about biobanking and genetic

testing.

Results

According to Dr. Frierson’s report, it seems before the discussion, only 60% of

participants said they would agree to do the study, but after discussion, 90% said they would.

This shows that educational information for potential participants will be important for future

research endeavors with biobanking.

Discussion

The project itself is very loose and not precise since the participants are free to speak or

not to speak about their feelings. This project should be used to just give useful information and

ideas about how to approach future research.

GATHER wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. When I thought about being a research

assistant, I thought I would be analyzing statistics or get to provide some aid in conducting

research. Instead, what I was doing was typing up transcripts of the discussions that had already

occurred. It was very dull work, so I was very glad to know that other RAs would be helping me

to type up the transcripts. I was actually not able to type up all of the transcripts I had been

assigned. It was very hard for me to focus on the task especially since it was very difficult. About

two times a week, I would spend an hour listening to the tapes and typing up what they said. I’m

not sure what was wrong with the tapes or the tape player, but the audio was very skewed and

awkward. So it took a lot of work to interpret what people were saying. Sometimes sitting in the

lab was therapeutic when I felt like I had too much stress and needed a way to calm down, but

for the most part, it was actually tough work and tough to stay focused. I was unable to do more
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than one hour (past an hour, I would take incomprehensibly long to type out one phrase) at a

time, so this probably hindered me a lot in completing my assigned focus groups.

I think I would have done a better job if I had been a part of GATHER for a longer time

and if I planned to stay with GATHER until the end. Instead, I just felt like I was helping out

and I didn’t want to stress myself out or be hard on myself for not producing as much.

I learned a lot about the process of conducting research. Emphasis on the participants is

crucial for ethical reasons. The very fact that Dr. Frierson is conducting a study before

conducting the real studies she is more interested in is proof enough of that. I learned how long a

research study can take. I started pondering on my own career in research. Is this something I

really wanted to do? This experience helped me better identify what it was I really wanted after

undergrad. I enjoy interpreting and analyzing research studies and data, but I don’t think I would

fair well in a strict lab setting.

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Reference

Frierson, Georita. (2010). Executive Summary for Project Diversity GATHER.

Southern Methodist University.