Isabel Goddard is a Senior majoring in Cultural Anthropology and Quantitative Social Science. She was a recipient of a Spring 2017 Conference Grant and attended the Cornell Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium.
I presented in the poster session of the Cornell
Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium April 28th 2017.[1] Attending
this colloquium provided me with the opportunity to present my linguistic
research findings in an academic
environment to students and faculty from across the world. The vast majority of
the presentations reflected research students had conducted for their honors
theses and these studies ranged from phonetic topics such as “Ergativity,
Agreement, and the Sumerian Verbal Complex” to socio-linguistic research
including “L’identité et la Frncophilie au Maroc: Examining the interplay of
language perception and identity construction in the Moroccan student.” In this
way, I was exposed to every form of linguistic research. The colloquium also
included talks given by undergraduate students and a keynote talk given by
Professor Laurel MacKenzie of New York University. I learned a great deal about
how linguistic research is conducted in different sub-specialties of the field
by talking with other students and faculty about their research studies.
The
experience of presenting my own research also gave me insight into the process
of designing a poster and explaining my research methodology and findings to
others. The chance to explain my work to others deepened my own understanding
of my work and the questions I received gave me insight into new ways of viewing
my research and potential ways of furthering the research in the future. I also
realized how valuable the opportunity to present at academic conferences can be
in terms of creating professional networks and learning from other very
accomplished students and faculty in the same field.
I was very impressed by
the research presentations of the other members of the conference and I found
their creative research projects and dedication to linguistic studies
incredibly inspiring. The Cornell Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium was the
most academic community I have ever experienced it made me realized how
intellectually stimulating these conferences are. It made me wonder if it would
be possible to organize similar undergraduate colloquiums at Emory that host students
from top universities across the country doing research in a given field. I
think that this would be a valuable addition to the Emory Undergraduate
experience and serve as a great way of helping students begin networking in an
academic context. It would allow students to learn how to present their
research findings in an academic context as well as exposing them to students
from across the country doing related but unique research in their same field.
This would broaden individual student’s academic and professional networks
as well as helping them learn what presenting at conferences is like. I deeply
appreciated the opportunity to meet the other students presenting and loved to
chance to meet students from different backgrounds with similar academic
interests. This is often hard to do at Emory, and this conference was one of
the few experiences I have had of being able to find other students from
diverse backgrounds with similar passions.
I hope to stay in touch with many of them. This experience was thus a
wonderful combination of social and academic growth and I feel incredibly lucky
to have been able to participate.
[1] http://conf.ling.cornell.edu/culc11/
Visit the Undergraduate Research Programs website to learn more about applying for Conference Grants.
Visit the Undergraduate Research Programs website to learn more about applying for Conference Grants.
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