IGEM Toronto: Promoting Independent Undergraduate Research in Synthetic Biology at the University of Toronto

Abstract

Finding suitable research opportunities can be stressful for undergraduate students. These experiences can ultimately define a student’s future career path, decision to attend professional school or graduate programs, or interest in work-ing in a specific industrial stream. With academic and job-related applications, including scholarships and funding opportunities, putting greater emphasis on research experience, students are finding themselves seeking any opportu-nities made available to them. This can include becoming a volunteer tasked with basic lab tasks (cleaning, making simple solutions, restocking materials, etc.), or administrative duties (stock inventory, ordering reagents, file organiza-tion), which although important, do not fully allow them to gain the all the skillsets needed to become a researcher. There are also opportunities for students to take on research projects, but often with the project outline and instruc-tions established and given by an upperclassman or principal investigators (PIs), restricting the student from making big decisions or pursuing independent research. Despite being valuable experience, important skills such as designing or planning an experiment, or troubleshooting problems, remain underdeveloped. This creates a large gap in research ability between finishing undergraduate education and entering graduate school or pursuing a research career. So what opportunities are provided for undergraduate students to be independent researchers?