Then I met Professor Brown in a freshman seminar and got involved in the fisheries program. It really changed my perspective. I volunteered for a semester in the aquaculture laboratory, got hired on, helped graduate students, then did three publishable projects on my own. Undergraduates have a chance to complete research projects and publish because they can jump into research that's in progress, says food science Professor Suzanne Nielsen. Professors already have written the proposals for funding, bought the glassware and set up the equipment.
Students join projects in time to help set up and conduct experiments.
It was just fun. Mauer now is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. While she worked with Nielsen, Mauer wrote an honors thesis describing the effects of environmental conditions on the nutrient content of soybeans. It turned into her first published paper and helped her get support to continue in graduate school. They took a good look at my thesis before they made that decision.