The many places research can take you

Last weekend I was able to travel to Boston with eight other Mercyhurst students to present research at the James C. McCroskey and Virginia P. Richmond Undergraduate Scholars Conference. My research group, which consists of Alicia Cagle, Lindsay Cox and me, traveled to Washington D.C. last year to present research at this conference.  I talked about my experience there in this previous blog post.

This year, Alicia, Lindsay and I presented our paper titled "Framing of Muslims and America: A content analysis of opinion and news articles within international media outlets." Our paper looked at how Muslims and America are framed in relation to each other in both opinion and news articles from CNN, Fox News, NPR, The New York Times, BBC and Al Jazeera.

Alicia, Lindsay and I presented our
research during a poster session.

I was really excited to go back to this conference because last year's conference is the reason I started considering graduate schools. Different graduate schools with communication master's programs attend this conference to recruit students. Even though I wasn't interested in any of the schools that were at the conference, it's cool to hear about the different programs and opportunities. Just learning about these programs last year at the conference sparked my interest in grad school.

Another reason I was so excited to attend this conference was because I greatly enjoyed conducting this research, and I wanted to share our results with communication students and faculty. 

The three of us explored Boston when
we weren't presenting research.

 Sometimes you might not be excited about a topic when you start researching it, but if you work hard enough, you will become immersed in what you are studying. I wasn't extremely eager to begin studying the framing of Muslims in news sources when I began researching this topic in the fall of 2010. Now I just presented research on this same topic in the spring of 2012.

It sounds like such a long time to be researching the same topic, but my partners and I have been able to accomplish so much with our study. We were chosen as the top four paper at last year's Undergraduate Scholars Conference, we placed in the top five at the University of Buffalo's Research Symposium, we have been published in a communication journal and now we have presented at this year's Undergraduate Scholars Conference.

I'm not sure if I am done researching the framing of Muslims in news sources, but I'm very happy with the opportunities my research has provided me. I am looking forward to having opportunities to conduct research with faculty members at Ohio State next year, and I'm excited to see where this research will lead me.

A desire to learn

The decision to go to grad school and continue with an education can be difficult, especially after four years of undergrad and the possibility of beginning a well-paying career. I always figured I would get a job right after graduation, and I had never even considered getting my master’s until my junior year of college.

During my first trimester of junior year, I took the class Communication Theory and Research. Research had never appealed to me before, but this class changed my views of writing research papers.

I was in a research group with fellow students Alicia and Lindsay. Together we decided to explore the framing of Muslims in American media. We chose this topic because the class took place during the time of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the proposed building of the Islamic Center in New York City and threats of burning the Quran by a pastor in Florida.

We also thought this was a good topic because other groups in our class were researching Teen Mom and Jersey Shore. We wanted to write on a topic that sounded a little more academic than trashy teens and fist pumping.



Alicia, Lindsay and I (left) received trophies
after we presented our research. 

After working on this paper during the entire term, we were able to produce a 28-page paper titled “The Content Analysis of the Portrayal of Muslims in American Media." Our professor was very happy with our work and encouraged us to submit it to the James C. McCroskey and Virginia P. Richmond Undergraduate Scholars Conference.

We submitted our paper to the conference and were not only accepted, but we placed in the top four for undergraduate research papers out of more than 125 submissions. This meant we were able to travel to Arlington, Va. in April last year to present our research.

At the conference, many graduate schools with communication programs were present. Our professor kept telling us how they would want to recruit us to their programs, and I was excited about these prospects. This conference was the first time I seriously considered graduate school.

Since that conference, our paper has been published in Communication: A Publication of the Pacific and Asian Communication Association, which can be found here. It has also placed in the top five for undergraduate and graduate research papers at the University of Buffalo Research Symposium.

All of these experiences have been so enjoyable that I am looking forward to being a graduate student and having the opportunity to conduct research, write scholarly papers and present my findings to communication professors.

If you're considering grad school, I think it’s important to have a real desire to learn and have a good idea of why you want to go. Otherwise, you may regret staying in school when you could be out earning a salary and gaining job experience.