By Constantine Martin
Nearly 700 University of Maryland students presented their practicum experiences as College Park Scholars held its 22nd Annual Academic Showcase on May 4 in the Edward St. John Learning & Teaching Center.
This two-hour event was free to the public and showcased projects from the 12 thematic programs within Scholars that ranged from musical therapy presentations to detailed research findings on the spread of diseases, all of which could be found throughout ESJ.
This was the first time the Academic Showcase was held in ESJ, as it was previously held in the Armory. The new venue allowed the program to experiment more with the layout of the event, as well as provide more space.
“By having this whole building, students had the opportunities to expand beyond their standard poster presentations into group deliberations like debates, presentations on semester-long projects, and also creative presentations in our arts program,” said Jess Krenek, College Park Scholars’ administrative coordinator. “This the first year we’ve done it in [ESJ], and so far it seems like this is one of the biggest attendance years we’ve had as well.”
The majority of projects were presented by students standing next to their posters, but some projects were given designated time slots to present in lecture halls or classrooms.
Some students, such as sophomore public health science and voice performance major Bryan Kihara, tackled projects that had not been done before. In Kihara’s case, he looked at the benefits of music in terms of mood regulation, emotion and physical sensations, and played a soothing song to relax his audience.
“I realized that every time I play certain songs I feel a certain way, and I wanted to learn more about it and it inspired me to do more research,” said Kihara. “My art is music, but I loved being introduced to new types of talents and arts.”
College Park Scholars also partnered with the University of Cuenca in Ecuador to host Ecuadorian students and professors who presented their research at the showcase–an opportunity that assistant director of the Science Technology and Society Scholars program Matthew Aruch feels has been beneficial to both universities in not only doing productive research but in learning about each other’s countries through “cross-cultural collaboration.”
“This is just a way to continue that collaboration and perhaps provide an opportunity for our students to become more interested in opportunities in Ecuador and elsewhere,” said Aruch. “The bigger picture for [Science, Technology and Society Scholars] is we want to get our STEM students thinking differently about how research is done, why we do research, and what are some of the social, ethical, political and economic implications of their work.”
University of Cuenca civil engineering student Juan Zambrano said he got involved in the organization through a global classroom project in which he and his group did a study about how robots and drones can help rescue people after natural disasters.
“It has been a great experience because we can share a lot of information that we have in our study to everyone here,” said Zambrano. “I have never been to an American college, so being here has been a really good experience because a lot of people have been very kind to us.”
This event was the biggest held thus far in ESJ building, which opened about a year ago, an experiment that Krenek and other organizers of the event feel was a success. College Park Scholars hopes to have their annual academic showcases at ESJ in the future to ensure more attendance and more opportunities for students to create diverse projects and presentations.
“Being in the [Environment, Technology and Economy Scholars] program and being in a living and learning community has given me friends that are some of the best people I’ve met here in college,” said sophomore finance and operations management major Ellie Mazzuca. “It’s definitely nice to have that group and that place where you fit in, and knowing that we’re all interested in the topic is pretty cool as well.”