As summer draws to a close and fall slowly approaches, I want to take the time to reflect on my journey participating in the Brackenridge Research Fellowship summer program.

First, a brief introduction: my name is Felicia Shen and I am a rising senior with a Psychology major, an Applied Statistics minor, and a Children’s Literature certificate. I spent my summer working on my psychology research project at the Kids’ Thinking Lab in the Learning Research and Development Center with Dr. Melissa Libertus, where we uncovered various math tasks and math routines that may occur during pretend grocery play to understand how parents could teach their children mathematics. Thus, much of my summer was spent understanding and identifying literature, as well as gathering and analyzing data to support my research project.

What I learned this summer while working on my project was that a research project can take time, patience, and flexibility. In the beginning, I was quite intimidated by my project due to its rather niche topic and the large amount of data that I have to collect. Furthermore, it was quite difficult to pin down the specifics of my project in the beginning. But over time and as summer went by, the project became clearer and clearer. Additionally, time has shown me that my project can evolve on its own and that it is okay for it to look slightly different compared to when I originally conceived it. I was worried and slightly apprehensive that the project was becoming larger than I initially intended it to be, but my research advisor, Dr. Melissa Libertus, has assured me that it is okay for my project to change and if it seems to be taking slower than I think. That is all part of the research process in which we are discovering new things every day throughout the data collection process. I simply had to acknowledge that research does indeed take a long time and is not something one can complete in a few short months.

The weekly seminars required upon my acceptance to the Brackenridge program were very helpful. Not only do I get to meet and talk to people from various disciplines about their own project, but the seminars have also provided me with career development resources that will no doubt become helpful as I continue to advance my professional career. We were given advice about how to prepare our research posters, grant writing, and purpose statements to aid us for our current and future research projects. Furthermore, I was also introduced to various scholarship opportunities that will no doubt become useful when I apply for graduate school. Overall, the Brackenridge Fellowship has been a valuable and unique experience for me.

After this summer, I will continue to develop my project. I’m planning to turn my research project into a thesis for my major. Additionally. I wish to further pursure this research path by applying for graduate programs, preferably a PhD, with an emphasis in Developmental Psychology or in the learning sciences. I still plan on pursing a career in education, whether that be in curriculum development, education policy, or in research. I am very grateful for the resources, skills, and opportunities that Brackenridge has given me.