In High School Ian was constantly exploring. He took a number of different classes to figure out what he liked and didn’t like. He loved Math, French. He enjoyed being part of the crew in Theater. He was involved in the Orchestra.

When he was applying to college, he didn’t even know that Research was a thing!

Ian joins our podcast to share his undergraduate college journey at Grand Valley, his UG Research experiences, and Advice for college-bound students.

In particular, we discuss the following with him:

• Overall Grand Valley Experience
• UG Research
• Impact of UG Research
• Advice to High Schoolers

Topics discussed in this episode:

• Introduction to Ian Curtis, GVSU [0:43]
• Hi Fives - Podcast Highlights [1:50]
• Overall Grand Valley Experience [4:14]
• Why Grand Valley? [5:24]
• High School Interests [7:03]
• Research By Accident [9:40]
• 1700’s French Encyclopedia [13:33]
• Detecting Censorship [19:53]
• Other Kinds of UG Research [21:20]
• Music Recommendation Algorithm [23:59]
• Impact of UG Research [27:05]
• Choosing Stat & French as Majors [31:34]
• Language-Culture Study [34:58]
• What Next? [36:47]
• Advice for Freshman [38:22]
• Skills for High Schoolers [42:19]
• Memories [45:42]

Our Guest: Ian Curtis is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics and French at Grand Valley State University.

Memorable Quote: “I'm promoting research on campus because I hope it kind of demystifies the idea of research is like this, you must be an expert to research, and you must know what you're doing, and you must have it perfect and all laid out. That's just not how it works in any research project”. Ian Curtis.

Episode Transcript: Please visit Episode’s Transcript.

Similar Episodes: College Experiences , UG Research

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