I recently began considering Oxford College and I have a few questions about research opportunities. First, is it easy to get involved in research while at Oxford? Are there many active projects going on at Oxford, or would you likely have to get a position at main and commute? Also, how hard is it to get a position in a lab once you continue on to Emory? Is it more difficult since you’re already a junior?
I really want to get as much research experience as possible to help figure out if a career in science would suit me. Hopefully someone here will have some insight. Thanks in advance!
As a current student, I honestly know more people who are involved in research from Oxford than the Atlanta campus. Oftentimes people go to the Atlanta campus and work over there, but it’s incredibly easy to get research positions at Oxford and Emory in general.
@RussWest0 Out of curiosity, are you referring to basic science research opportunities at Oxford? There aren’t that many basic science professors or labs at Oxford so how could there be that many basic science research opportunities?
My daughter, currently a freshman at Oxford, is applying for research opportunities in the social sciences. My sense is there is actually more opportunity to do research as a freshman or sophomore at Oxford than on the main campus. Oxford Pre- med majors can also be offered summer research opportunities on the Emory campus . A pretty high percentage of the Oxford freshman are pre-med but my daughter is a humanities major. Hope this helps - good luck!
Some students do summer research with Oxford professors outside of SURE.
There's an ongoing research project on the Oxford campus involving breast cancer research that involves undergraduates.
The biology courses offered at Oxford are typically of the Inquiry variety (designated INQ or Q) and involve a lot of hands on, hypothesis driven research, written reports and oral presentations. You'll see this beginning in Biology 141Q, which is the intro biology class, all the way through the advanced courses offered at the Oxford campus. This is much more the case with Oxford science courses than Emory College science classes.
If you’re taking 2 lab sciences a semester, as many do as freshman and/or sophomores, it’s probably impractical to also be undertaking outside undergraduate research as well as the time commitments are probably too much.
One last thing, students who do well in their Oxford science and math classes have had good success in getting funded summer research offered by various research institutes, research hospitals, universities and medical schools, as well as research opportunities offered by main campus investigators once they transfer over.
You can get a sense of main campus research opportunities by looking at the undergraduate research links for whatever department holds your interest (biology, chemistry, physics).