Information for Cook College Sophmores

By now, you should be familiar with the Cooperative Education Program and its benefits. (If you are not, go directly to Martin 211.) Many of you have also heard about The George H. Cook Scholars Program, Cook’s senior honors thesis program. Like Cooperative Education, any such independent research fulfills the EXPERIENCE-BASED EDUCATION requirement of most of Cook's major programs.

You have also likely heard many times about the virtues of attending a research university and the opportunities it offers. The George H. Cook Scholars Program is the best-organized way to go about taking advantage of these opportunities. Completion of the program bears witness to your ability to sustain a long-term research project and to see it through to a "professional" presentation. This unquestionably gives you an edge in the highly competitive graduate/professional school or employment market you will face in two years. Undertaking an honors project also provides personal working relationships with faculty members, "post-docs" and graduate students, research and extension faculty -- and puts you far closer to the "real world" than the structured classroom situation in which you have spent the last fifteen years.

What you should consider seriously as a sophomore are the ways in which your junior year courses can help you prepare for all this. For starters, this is the time to bite the bullet and take the courses with intimidating subject matters/workloads: organic chemistry, genetics, biochemistry, scientific and technical writing, physiology, statistics, environmental law, physics -- depending on the field you wish to enter. These are the courses that professors typically list as "prerequisites" to working on a senior honors project in their fields. Having some of these monsters behind you by your senior year, furthermore, will give you confidence that you have the gumption for graduate work or a challenging position in the field you wish to enter: a little confidence goes a long way in an interview.

Even if you do not do Cooperative Education or some kind of research, try to get some "hands-on" experience: for example, lab courses, field work, independent study, internships, volunteer positions. Such experience will give you a taste of the field you wish to enter -- and you may discover that you don't want to enter it after all. Finding this out before your senior year will give you a chance to reorient yourself.

Finally, the Web- and telephone registration systems have freed both you and your Academic Advisor from contacts requiring no more than a hand and a pen. Use this technology for what it's worth and use your Academic Advisor for what she is there for: consultation about all of the issues mentioned here. Registration for the fall of your junior year is a crucial time for laying the groundwork for life-after-Cook.

Do not hesitate to drop by my office (Loree 038) if you have questions. If I can't answer them, I'm likely to know who can.

<<Back