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The CCRA blog is authored by Columbia undergraduate researchers, who are invited to reflect on all aspects of the research process and their own undergraduate research experiences, beginning (but not ending) with the Core.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Zero to Hero: The Power of Being the Least Experienced Person in the Room
The first time I walked into the 202 Hamilton Conference Room for a research information session, I felt like I had shown up to a party where everyone else had received the dress code and I hadn’t. People were tossing … Continue reading
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Collaboration, Research, and the Senior Thesis Seminar (Part Two)
In Part One (link) of this series, Julia and Sarah spoke with our seminar instructor, Hannah Farber, about the role of collaboration in a long-term, independent research project like the senior thesis. Professor Farber shared with us how, from the … Continue reading
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In Plain Sight: Finding the Core Where You Least Expect It
The Core Curriculum has a simple job: condensing thousands of years of human thought and culture into 8 semesters of coursework (or really 6, if you don’t count University Writing and Frontiers of Science). One of the many things that … Continue reading
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Horatio and the Core
Near the beginning of Hamlet, the titular character famously says to his stolid and rational best friend, “There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” It is easy to imagine the two … Continue reading
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They Didn’t Understand Rage: Columbia 1968 and Community Roundtables
“They were just so far from an understanding of rage. They didn’t understand the feeling,” says David Schiller, a Fayerweather Hall occupier during the 1968 protest at Columbia. Schiller captured what lay at the core of the divide between the … Continue reading
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AI Ethics and Research
In a little over five minutes, Adam Aleksic’s Ted Talk about social media, language trends, and AI software completely changed my relationship with writing. It’s no great secret that the tools Aleksic is talking about—Sora, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others—have … Continue reading
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In Search of an Original Contribution
When I began the senior thesis process, my seminar instructors made it clear that my project should address a “gap in the scholarship” in order to make an “original contribution.” This terrified me. I had serious doubts that I, at … Continue reading
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Five Tips for Pursuing Humanities Research as an Undergraduate
Choose a topic you’re interested in. People often talk about the importance of choosing a research topic that you’re passionate about. Passion can be helpful, but I think that curiosity is even more important. The first research project I pursued … Continue reading
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To The Lighthouse and Back Again
Freshman year is the gift that keeps on giving. Untoward anxiety about your future, LinkedIn connections, friends you spend sixteen hours out of the day with, and most importantly, a hefty collection of Literature Humanities books. Many of us know … Continue reading
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On Looking Closely
At the beginning of my semester abroad at Oxford, my tutor summoned me and the two other visiting students studying English to his office to give us some advice. We were going to be writing papers much more regularly than … Continue reading
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