ANSC 4400

Tools for a Lifelong Career in Research

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2015-2016.

The purpose of the course is to provide students with both general strategies and specific tools that facilitate a lifelong career in research. Long-term planning and future adaptability are course features. Keys to a successful and satisfying research career will be emphasized using historic examples including several from Cornell. The students will learn strategies for accessing, storing, mobilizing and integrating information in ways that support the development of novel research ideas. Each stage of the research career will be discussed including strategies for balancing both career success and personal satisfaction.

When Offered Fall.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: 20 credit hours in science and/or technology courses.

• Knowledge: Students will define and relate diverse forms of knowledge that are available for their use in research. They should leave the course with an appreciation for the breadth and diversity of knowledge that is available for their use in the research setting.
• Comprehension: Students will describe, discuss, explain, and identify their grasp of different information that is often available as distinct forms of knowledge. They should leave the course with an increased comfort level for working with linear and nonlinear-derived knowledge.
• Application: Students will practice and demonstrate the capacity to employ knowledge forms for use as applied to research-oriented problem solving. They should leave the course realizing the expanded types of information that are available for their use in research.
• Analysis: Students will use diagrams of accesable information (e.g., concept maps) to inventory and examine available conceptual frameworks as they improve their own capacities for differentiation and synthesis.
• Synthesis: Students will formulate ideas and organize information in designing and constructing concept maps that use different knowledge bases. They will manage these information landscapes to create research choice points. Students should leave the course with a better appreciation for how these choice points can affect their overall research career.
• Evaluation: Students will learn how the selection of sources of knowledge, and organization of information into conceptual frameworks can affect their ability to judge and relatively rank their options over the course of a research career. During the course, students will perform exercises that will provide them with multiple frames of reference illustrating the outcomes of differential evaluations of research-relevant information.

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