HON-H398 HONORS RESEARCH TOPICS

Introduction: During the spring semester of my junior year of college I conducted independent research under the mentorship of Dr. Stephen Boehm in the Boehm lab at IUI. I sought to identify a paradigm successful in getting C57BL/6 mice to self-administer caffeinated alcohol. This artifact demonstrates the flexible nature of HON-H398 to current and future honors students. This is important to acknowledge because HON-H398 offers honors students a way to earn honors credits while developing necessary skills in the domain in which they see themselves long term, in my case it is research.

Visuals and Findings

Reflection: This honors experience helped me grow as a student, researcher, and prospective graduate student. I grew independence and confidence in my ability to generate and conduct research of my own. I went into the experience understanding how to conduct research in a team, but this experience forged a sense of independence in my research. I was able to conduct this experiment from the ground up. I developed research questions, wrote a protocol, constructed an experimental design, and gathered the data. HON-H398 helped construct my research skills and further prepared me for graduate school where I hope to obtain a PhD.