How Saying "Yes" to Research Changed my College Experience
If you told freshman-year me that research would become one of the most meaningful parts of my time at UC Davis, I would be shocked. As a STEM major on the more computational side of things, I never pictured myself working in a lab. In my head, doing research involved white lab coats, chemical experiments, and petri dishes.
I knew UC Davis was a research institution, but knowing something exists and actually imagining yourself doing it are two very different things. For a long time, I just never bothered to look. The only reason any of this changed is because my housemate practically dragged me to the Undergraduate Research Conference in the spring quarter of our freshman year. I remember walking in with zero expectations.
Looking back, that moment feels like a pivotal point in my college journey
Now, if I could give one piece of advice to any student at any university, it would be to take advantage of the resources your college has to offer. Even the ones you think aren’t for you.
Joining My First Ever Research Lab
At the Undergraduate Research Conference, I wandered around and eavesdropped on presentations, trying to figure out how any of this related to what I was learning in class. That’s when I came across a project from the UC Davis Phonetics Lab. It compared human voices to text-to-speech voices using vector analysis, combining linguistics, machine learning, and data analysis. In other words, it combined all of my interests and perfectly encapsulated everything I was going to learn in my classes.
It also wasn’t something my courses had covered yet. A lot of the foundational classes you take early on feel disconnected to what you imagine doing after graduation. Research gives you a jump start on your future. It teaches you the skills and concepts that actually matter in the fields you’re interested in long before you actually learn them in class.
At the conference, I struck up a conversation with the research assistant presenting the project. She walked me through how the study worked, what tools they used, and how she got involved. She was incredibly kind and ready to share her experiences, and I remember thinking that I could see myself in her shoes.
That conversation led directly to my first official research role.
What I Learned in the Phonetics Lab
Working in the Phonetics Lab ended up being the perfect blend of hard and soft skills. I learned so much in just one year. On the technical side, I got hands-on experience with machine learning fundamentals, building entire data pipelines in Python, performing statistical analysis and visualization in R, and annotating and manipulating vowel data in Praat.
All these skills came from hands-on experimentation, problem-solving, and figuring things out in real time. Research forces you to learn by doing and, because you can see exactly how your work answers a larger question, everything you learn sticks. Beyond the technical pieces, I also picked up soft skills like synthesizing a year of work into an engaging research poster, presenting my findings to both peers and faculty, collaborating with professors and grad students, communicating clearly about complex ideas, and managing long-term projects with real stakes. These are skills that translate everywhere, from industry roles to grad school applications.
Cognitive Science Research at the Center for Mind and Brain
My first research role ended up opening the door to my current one: working in a cognitive science lab at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain (CMB). This experience has been totally different from my phonetics role in the best way. While my first lab was more remote and technical, this new position is hands-on and people-focused. I run virtual reality experiments, work directly with participants, and help with data collection, usability testing, and A/B studies. I get to see how research operates on the human-subject side, where precision, communication, and experimental design matter just as much as code.
Getting exposure to different types of research has been incredibly valuable. It’s helped me understand all the different facets of research, from designing a study, to building the tools behind it, to collecting data, to analyzing results, to presenting your findings. It’s also broadened my skillset in ways I never expected. If you ever have the chance to explore more than one style of research, do it. You start to realize how many directions your major can take you and how many interdisciplinary paths exist that no one tells you about in class.
A Final Note & Some Thank-Yous
Before I wrap up, I really want to acknowledge the people who made my research journey possible. First, Shruti Nene, my housemate and the reason I even went to the Undergraduate Research Conference in the first place. At the conference, I listened to Grisha Bandodkar, the research assistant presenting the phonetics project that completely inspired me to join the lab.
A huge thank you to Professor Georgia Zellou at the UC Davis Phonetics Lab, and to Michelle Cohn, the graduate student I worked under there. Michelle taught me everything from PRAAT to Python pipelines and guided me through an entire year of learning. At the Center for Mind and Brain, I’m incredibly grateful to Professor Joy Geng for welcoming me into her lab, and to Qianqian Wan, the graduate student I currently work under.
In closing, don’t be scared to approach professors. Don’t be scared to cold email labs. Don’t be scared to put yourself out there. Professors want to help. Graduate students want to mentor. And more often than not, they’ll respond, include you, and give you opportunities you didn’t even know existed.