Major: Political Science, History, and Spanish –
Bio: Brady is a senior at AC from Whitesboro, Texas and I am a triple major in Political Science, History, and Spanish. While at AC I have been an RA, C/L, tour guide, and a Student Assembly representative. Besides my extracurricular involvement on campus I have been able to go abroad for a JanTerm with the help of the Stephens Scholarship, I have been a grant writer through SEPA, and I am a Scarbrough Summer Research Scholar. I was also inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. I will be attending SMU Law School in the fall.
Research: I attended Undergraduate Research on the hill in Austin, TX on March 28th towards the end of my thesis writing process. The conference itself was very straightforward and easy to navigate. The registration process was simple and the presentation period did not last long. I really appreciated the questions I received from the other students, professors, and members of the community. I had some very good questions asked that helped me edit my final thesis appropriately. The conference was a great experience for me as an AC student because I had done so much preparation with the help of my professors so it was nice seeing my work come together. It was also a mini-practice for when I eventually defend my thesis. I also enjoyed hearing about other students’ research at other colleges. I initially began my research project in my State and Local Politics class with Dr. Nate Bigelow. I wrote up a research design as a class project which I ended up using when he asked me to do a thesis. I applied for and was accepted to be a Scarbrough Summer Research Fellow so over the summer, Dr. Bigelow helped me gather and analyze my data. I utilized this time I had over the summer very well which was extremely valuable to completing my thesis on time. Some advice I have for students wanting to do undergraduate research would be to plan efficiently and to start early. It was beneficial for me to set small goals over time so the whole task of writing a research paper didn’t seem so daunting. By the time fall semester was over, I already had a lot of my actual paper written even if it was just a rough draft. Overall, my experience writing a senior honors thesis and attending research conferences was positive. The time management and public speaking skills that I gained from this will help me long after I graduate college.