RK

             I am not a huge fan of starting a TV show during the beginning of a school year because I get addicted very easily, but this time I could not help it. My friend invited me over to watch one of her favorite shows: Suits. Initially, the TV show seemed boring, mundane, just one of those usual crime series. However, upon hearing this simple sentence, “research is just as much art as science,” I suddenly perked up. I abruptly stopped the show and rewound it back a few seconds. “Research is just as much art as science.” Hearing those words again, I started to smile like a lunatic. Did she just say my three FAVORITE words in one sentence? “Research”, that one word fills me with an unfathomable excitement. It not only helped me engage in “science” but also incorporated my love for “art,” which allowed me to communicate my experiences to others.

             I remember entering the research classroom; the sides were covered with banners of Intel STS and Siemens semifinalists. What am I doing here? My puzzled thoughts were forever muted the minute Dr. Truglio, my research teacher, walked into the classroom and began teaching the “definition of null hypothesis.” As I wrote down and drew everything exactly how he was teaching it, I began to become more and more interested in statistics. I had so many questions, Why does a larger T-value produce a smaller P-value? How could correlations  have P-values? I decided to tackle the first question. I took the approach of visualizing the information. I drew a huge graph with two normal distribution curves - they look like two large hills overlapping when they meet. With the assistance of the teachings from class, I was able to identify the components of the graph: the means and the spreads of the curves.  Then I realized that the only part of the graph that was not labeled was the space between the two curves above where they overlapped. I realized that this could represent my t-value.  The greater the space was between the two curves, the more significantly different the curves were from each other. It gave me so much excitement to finally understand it through visualization. From this moment on, I knew I wanted to put more effort into research than all my classes combined.

        These visual interpretations not only made information easier for me to understand but also helped me communicate what I learned from that class to other people. Over the summer, I conducted sociology research at Stony Brook University. My roommate, Selina, conducted computational research. One day I was writing my research plan for my study, and I heard Selina murmuring, “What the heck is an ANOVA?” My ears perked up, and I found myself smiling again like a lunatic. I quickly grabbed my statistical software guide and notebooks - both consisting of cumulative information from the past three years - and laid them across the floor. Just like how Dr. Truglio had taught me in class, I started explaining “the definition of null hypothesis.” However this time, I used the visuals I created in my notebook to explain the significance of all these statistical tests. As I explained to her what I had learned, she seemed to understand completely of what I was teaching her. Not only that, she seemed to be so mesmerized by the information - the same way I was when my teacher taught me these statistical tests. That feeling stayed with me forever.

        I hope that the experience and knowledge that I have gained from research in high school will continue to grow in college. I realized those fixed dreams I had as a child - wanting to become an artist, teacher, or princess - were now bundled into one open-ended goal: to become extremely knowledgeable about something and communicate it efficiently to others. I hope my college experience will guide me in that direction, the same way my three FAVORITE words have.