It's surreal that I'm an undergraduate political science senior at Widener University. I've gotten good grades in all but two of my classes that I'm proud of. However, all of these good grades don't allow me to graduate unless I pass senior research.
Senior research, the highest point in your undergraduate career. The final test to show what you know and what you learned in the past four years you've been here. For me, political science has many topics to cover. I could cover American politics, comparative or foreign governments, or the judicial politics.
The perils of senior research I'm about to list, is all of the behind the scenes work. The audience of the seniors doing the research only see the final product of the project. So I'll give you a little inside scoop of conducting senior research. It's not as bad as you think, as long as you know what you're doing. (I wrote this article, as I was taking a break from senior research.)
1. Deciding on a Topic
This can be difficult for some people. The topic must be in a field of what you're interested in and know the most about. For me it was either the Supreme Court or the European Union. I chose the EU. The next step regarding your topic is coming up with a question and how you're going to measure that.
2. Research Question/Hypotheses/Variables
Probably one of the most painstaking parts of the research. You may change your question or hypotheses around many times so you have a clear understanding of what you're trying to figure out. The variables themselves can be tough because you need to find out if you can actually measure them or not, empirically. If you can't then find another way around.
3. Writing the Paper
Since I'm more of a writer than a talker, the actual writing if the paper isn't that hard for me. By this point you'll organize your paper on some sort of outline and you'll have your sources cited and ready to be placed wherever they need to be. Organization is key throughout
4. DATA
I'm not good at math or calculating numbers, luckily SPSS can do those tricky math for you. You just need to know what variables to put in and how to label them. Hopefully in the end, the data you acquire will either prove your hypothesis correct. Sometimes it can be more valuable if your hypothesis was wrong; you might have answered a question that people may have thought of as the answer but you took that hypothesis and disproved it. Who's the smart one now?
5. Poster/Presentation
It's time to look pretty. You and your poster, respectively. Show your fellow colleagues what you have found and be prepared to be asked questions. In the end, it'll be all worth it. You could even take the next step to get your research published in a undergraduate academic journal. How's that for a resume booster?
I'm not trying to scare you at all. I'm just letting you know what's ahead. If you want to graduate, you gotta do research. It'll finally be your time to become a political scientist of your own or whatever your major is. Another thing is to have fun with it. It's something you're interested in and you get to become your own expert. Senior research gives you something to be proud of. See, not so bad after all?
