Students presented their semester-long research and projects at this year’s Academic Excellence Celebration (AEC).
Celia Rabinowitz, director of the Mason Library and a member of the AEC coordinating committee, spoke about the event.
“The AEC … is a day when we get to hear about and celebrate all sorts of research and creative work that students have been doing,” said Rabinowitz. “There are a few ways that students can present. We have some panels, those are usually organized by a faculty member, then we have oral presentations, then at the end of the day we have big poster sessions.”
Rabinowitz also spoke about the process of student application to the AEC.
“We send out an email in the middle of the fall letting students know when the deadline will be for them to submit an abstract,” continued Rabinowitz. “Then all of us on the committee read the abstracts and we rate them and then we submit those ratings. We have a pretty good acceptance rate … We hardly ever turn anybody down.”
The AEC took place on Friday, April 25, from noon until 7 p.m. The event opened with a keynote panel discussion by KSC faculty at 12:45 p.m., but by 2 p.m. the AEC was turned over to the students.
Several groups of students gave presentations in the Putnam Science Center. These could range from discussing research they had conducted to reading aloud stories they had been writing to presenting films they have created. Afterwards, posters were set up in the Mason Library for students to present and discuss their research. According to Rabinowitz, there were approximately 35 posters at this year’s AEC.
“I looked at if the music people were listening to would change how they perceived the art that they were looking at. This was my first time doing skin conductance, so that was a whole new process,” said junior Keira Grupe. “I’m just a really big music fan so I wanted to see if other people had emotional reactions the same way I do.”
“What our project is about is using a computer model to identify pictures of cats and dogs,” said junior Chris Conley. “The human eye can pick that up and distinguish it very easily, but for a computer it’s a lot harder.”
“We wanted to do something that we loved, and we all have pets and we all love our pets,” added sophomore Hunter Rollins.
Students and faculty expressed their pride at the event and at seeing everyone’s research.
“It feels pretty great, it makes me feel like a real scientist,” said Grupe.
“It’s very gratifying to see the products that they [the students] have been working on for such a long time,” said Shailee Woodard, an assistant professor in the psychology department. “I’m proud of them for putting themselves out there and dedicating themselves to one thing for so long.”
“It feels amazing,” said sophomore Krish Gurung. “It was difficult at first but just being here is a sense of accomplishment. We were able to do this, and we did it pretty good. I’m proud of that.”
AEC committee members encouraged students to consider applying for it. While it might look good on a resume, most stressed the importance of the experience.
“We have students from all levels presenting…we want all students to think about this and we are looking for all kinds of presentations,” said Rabinowitz. “We want every student to think about work they’re doing that they really enjoy and think about how it might be something that we could incorporate into the AEC.”
“You learn so much more doing that hands-on work in a much deeper way,” said Woodard. “Regardless of the resume building stuff, that’s all great, but it’s just an amazing learning experience. Nerves are completely normal, feeling nervous about … putting yourself out there is definitely not a sign that you shouldn’t do it.”
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