 Hi, I'm Amanda McDonald and I'm the coordinator of the Advanced Research Skills series here at Newman Library and I'm here today with one of the students who completed the series previously so I'm so excited for us to hear what she has to say about it. Could you tell us your name and your major and when you took the series? Sure, so my name is Michelle Cornalty, I'm a junior pursuing a sociology major and I completed the program in spring of 2018. Awesome, so now that you've completed the program do you have like any reflections on it maybe thinking about what was really helpful or something that maybe influenced your future work? Yes, so this program was actually very helpful to how I got started in research. I was relatively new research of last semester and so this program was really beneficial in getting those first steps. I didn't, haven't seen the abstract before, I hadn't done a poster presentation and so when one of the workshops had covered the essential components of an abstract and that when I was also simultaneously looking to submit a paper as abstract for a conference, they gave the program and the workshop itself gave me information as well as tools to not only get started on abstract but finalize and submit it to the conference. Awesome, that's really exciting to hear. So did you end up presenting that research, did you get accepted? Yes, actually that was my first time submitting the abstract and it was also my first acceptance of an abstract and now through that acceptance I was able to present that abstract at a conference in Virginia. Excellent, I'm so excited and happy to hear that. Since then have you continued any kind of work related to undergraduate research? Yes, and this was just like a small moment in the undergraduate career of research that I've had. I've not only been pushing forward to submit more abstracts and more papers and more poster presentations, I've also been involved in the office undergrad research. I've, as a student ambassador, I've been helping other students get involved in their own research journey, guiding them with resources and opportunities around campus and so this program not only allowed me to become more aware of research opportunities but now I'm able, now in this position I'm able to disseminate that information to other students. Awesome, well it has been so great to talk with you today and I hope that your story encourages other students to kind of see the value in advanced research skills and hopefully we'll see more students go through the program and continue to go forth in their journey of undergraduate research.