Say hello to the USRA bloggers
Summer in the city. The 2013 USRA bloggers will be writing regular articles until the start of the fall term. From left: Stephanie Wan Sai Cheong, Rachel Eikelboom, Johnny (Wei) Bai, Marla Sharp, Murray Clayton and Brandon Tang.
McMaster’s School of Gradate Studies has six winners of Undergraduate Student Research Awards churning out fresh, informative and insightful content this summer.
The USRA bloggers are volunteers representing several faculties across campus, including: Science, Health Sciences, Humanities, Social Sciences and two from the Arts & Science Program. The goal of the blog is to have writers share their personal experiences from labs and libraries on campus, and students will be producing material until the end of the summer. The USRA Blog was initiated by the School of Graduate Studies (Office of Undergraduate Research — OURMac).
“Communicating research in a way that is accessible to the general public is very important,” says Judi Pattison, communications coordinator with the School of Graduate Studies. “The blog is a learning opportunity for young scholars to hone their communication skills. They receive feedback and mentoring on both the creative [written] and technical [how to use blogging software] aspects of blogging.”
Below is an excerpt from one of the inaugural posts, “Inspiration,” written by fourth-year Arts & Science student Rachel Eikelboom.
“What do music and medicine have in common? Ephemeral and evidence-based, soul-sustaining and life-saving, music and medicine seem worlds apart. And yet, I promise you that my USRA isn’t just the musings of an Arts & Science student who took an art and a science and stuck them together. Well, I guess it kind of started out that way …”
Read Rachel’s full post here, and be sure to bookmark the USRA Blog for regular visits throughout the summer.
