Does the prospect of a life beyond Schreiber overwhelm you? With a large number of colleges and careers to choose from, participating in a high school research class is a way to apply knowledge learned in class to real issues.
The school website reads, “One of the highest quality educational experiences a Schreiber student may be offered is the opportunity to participate in the school’s research program.” Schreiber offers three distinct research programs: science, math, and social science research.
Research programs offer opportunities for students to compete amongst students of the same caliber, research a topic of choice, and delve deeply into a favorite subject. Researches can allow students to expand their knowledge beyond math, science, or social studies classrooms.
Thirty students are accepted in their freshman year and continue in their research class for the rest of high school. A test and an interview must be taken for consideration, and math research requires an additional resume.
Unlike an elective, a research program cannot be dropped, so students must decide what research is best suited towards their interests. Each program is unique in terms of the research competitions they require students to enter and the areas of study they focus on, but they share the same attitude towards homework and projects. w
“The workload only affects you if you push it into too small a timeframe,” said senior Caitlin Ferris.
In class, students in social science research read books and papers and work on social science research papers and experiments, which can be about subjects like education, history, and psychology.
“Every class is essentially a study hall period, where you are free to do anything you want. Once in awhile, I meet with my research teacher to discuss revisions on something I wrote,” said senior and social science research student Jacob Bloch.
“In science research, students do more of the hands-on projects. They discover their own idea they want to do research on. They will order all the materials they need, design their own experiment, and execute their project over the course of two to eight weeks depending on the complexity,” said science research teacher Mr. John Schineller.
Math research students work on their math projects during class, and learn about solving difficult math problems. Math research students also study computer science, which focuses on teaching students how to code programs and websites.
Students in social science research may submit pieces of writing to the New York State Archives competition, the Ayn Rand Institute competition, or the Society of Professional Journalists competition. They can also enter to have their works published in the Concord Review, a prestigious high school history journal. Workload varies between each grade because younger students are still in the process of learning how to showcase their research.
“Math research students attend competitions like the Math fair, LISEF, and NSF Noyce Math Symposium. Older students have more experience, so they know what competitions are looking for,” said sophomore Maria Kogan in math research.
All juniors in research work on the Intel Science Talent Search project to their senior year and submit it for consideration.
The Intel Science Talent Search is a prestigious research competition dealing with students all over America, who compete for prizes and scholarships. Each student works towards researching a topic related to math, science, or social science, and they meet occasionally with their teachers to discuss progress.
“We receive help from our mentors Ms. Ezratty and Mr. Schineller, but a lot of the work is independently driven,” said junior Andrew Gruber in science research.
If you are interested in exploring different subjects and researching a topic of interest, research programs are definitely the way to go.