Hands-on Learning
UO offers many research opportunities. A few possibilities for undergraduates include joining a research group, writing a thesis, or participating in research over the summer. The first step is to get to know faculty and the research they do. The Undergraduate Introduction to Research colloquia offer an overview of several faculty members' research projects. When you find an area you are interested in, make an appointment with the appropriate faculty member.
Internships are another option, providing students with practical work experience and usually offer a combination of credit and/or pay. There are usually a number of year-round local opportunities, as well as many summer internships involving travel.
The Student Experience
Molly Suver came to the UO in search of an education that would allow her lots of room for academic exploration and cross-fertilization of ideas. She loves the CIS program because its base in theory allows for interdisciplinary research. “Don’t be afraid to take classes that don’t exactly fit your major,” Molly recommends. Her work with Professor Steve Fickas produces hardware and software to assist the cognitively impaired in speaking and increasing normal motor skills, but Molly has also worked on games for the Xbox 360 with the Game Development Club. She even took second place in an undergraduate programming competition. What Molly didn’t want out of her education was an aggressively competitive environment. She gets that on the field leading Fugue, the UO’s nationally-ranked women’s Ultimate Frisbee club.
When Jesse Wakeley first came to the UO, he was interested in a major in music, but decided to change his major to computer and information science because he wanted to understand how and why computers affect our lives. “And I wanted a challenge,” Wakeley says. “I got what I asked for.” As the UO president of the Association for Computer Machinery, Wakeley works to host workshops and tours for members to see how computer science is applied in the real world. Wakeley is also a member of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (the international CIS honor society), and founded a social networking site for Eugeneans. But Wakeley has not abandoned his ties to music. He is in a band called the Cocky Pedestrians, which he says is “the only jaywalk-themed rap supergroup in Eugene.”
When Erik Brown decided to go back to school after years of working in the software industry, he quickly found his niche within the CIS department.“It’s a fairly small group and everyone is great,” Brown says. “You get to know everyone.” At the UO, Brown has been helping associate professor Anthony Hornof with his research into human-computer interfaces. “We research search screens in order to help people use computers more effectively,” Brown says. Hornof and Brown’s research delves into how people use computers through tracking eye movements and how sound affects human interfaces with computers. “It’s a creative process,” Brown says, “because there are a million ways to write any one program. When you come up with an elegant solution to a problem, it’s a lot of fun.”
