My freshman year, I expressed interest in going to law school or graduate school to my RA. He suggested I look into potentially being a part of the McNair program given the criteria for the program. He presented the program to me as something that would be beneficial to look at from a financial perspective. He also mentioned that it would be a great program to look at if I was interested in graduate or law school. Initially, I was not too sold on it and kind of brushed it off because at that time I didn't even know what I wanted my major to be. The idea of participating in McNair and developing better research skills began to grow on me. I started the process and had an interview for the program my sophomore year. After that meeting, I still was not sure what I wanted to do and didn’t go through the final steps of the process. It wasn’t until my junior year was about to begin, when a friend, who was also in the program, encouraged me to go through with the application process, that I started seriously considering the program and deciding that it was a good fit for me.
Now, having been in the program for a few weeks, I am still just getting my feet wet. I am still learning about the program and what I can expect from the class. I am fortunate enough to have a friend in the program who has helped catch me up to speed on what I need to do for the assignments and how I need to go about finding a research project.
Now that I have gotten a grasp on what the McNair program is all about, I am starting to get a better idea of what kind of research project I would like to work on for the next couple years. I was previously completely lost about what I should do research on, however, with the help of my friends and mentors, Dr. Wonder, and Dr. Vang, I believe I am on the right track. I have been in conversations with one of my professors to help me develop a research topic within the field of law. Dr. Eric Kasper has a vast knowledge of law and even works as a part-time municipal judge in Rice Lake. I feel like we are working towards a solid research question. That being said, I still need to find a mentor. I think Dr. Kasper would be a great mentor. I am going to solidify my research question first before I reach out to any faculty about being a mentor though.
I am relieved to be in a good position in the research process so far. In my opinion, it is starting to come together quicker than I expected since talking with my professor. Hopefully, by the time I create my next blog post, my research question will be finalized, and I will have found a mentor.
