Healthy Discoveries
College of Health undergraduate student research program
Make valuable connections with faculty, build your skills, refine your career interests and be paid for your work.
Curious about research and what that means? Interested in discovering new knowledge about an area that interests you? Want to make valuable connections with faculty, build your skills, refine your career interests and be paid for your work?
The College of Health Healthy Discoveries program provides the support you need to conduct research projects early in your college career.
The Healthy Discoveries undergraduate research program is made possible with the generous support of the Patricia Valian Reser Fund for Experiential Learning.
What’s involved?
- Apply for and be accepted to participate in URSA Engage. As a participant you will receive $450 in winter and $550 in spring.
- Your faculty research mentor will verify that you have met URSA Engage expectations for winter and spring terms. In addition, with help from our college communications and marketing team, you will share details via videos and student profiles about your research project and experience to encourage future participants. Completion of these tasks provides you with an additional $750 in winter and $1,000 in spring.
- Choose if you want to meet every second week, for an hour during one term in academic year 2023-2024, with your faculty research mentor, reflect on what you learned, and share with others via a presentation or video for an additional $500.
Student researchers
Get to know the Healthy Discoveries undergraduate research program participants.
- What was their path to OSU?
- Why are they interested in research?
- Why did they want to be part of Healthy Discoveries?
- What research will they be working on and with whom?
- What are their future career or academic plans?
Info sessions
Watch the Healthy Discoveries information session for more details, tips on how to be successful, and answers to your questions.
- Watch a recording of 2022-23 session 1
Is this too good to be true?
It might be hard to believe that we are going to pay you to do what is good for you, but that is because we care about your success. We know the value of research experiences and want to help more students participate, especially first-generation and high financial need students. We anticipate 12 students being selected to participate in Healthy Discoveries this year.
Next steps?
- Read the FAQ section below to understand what research involves and why you qualify to do research.
- Read about URSA Engage.
- Come to the Healthy Discoveries information session for more details, tips on how to be successful, and answers to your questions. The session will be held 5-6 p.m. Tuesday October 4 in Hallie Ford Center 115. A recording will be posted here after the session.
FAQ
Undergraduate research experiences promote your engagement in ways that traditional classroom instruction cannot.
Engaging in research or creative work with a faculty mentor can help you build confidence, develop problem-solving skills, and refine career interests.
As an undergraduate researcher, you’ll become knowledgeable about a topic you are interested in, make valuable connections with faculty members, and develop communication skills.
Research involves projects that are designed to discover new knowledge, answer questions, and solve problems.
Research involves many forms. For example, you might do laboratory work, fieldwork, modeling and computation, data collection with surveys and interviews, data entry and analysis, quality assurance and control, or a myriad of other tasks.
Many faculty mentors do not expect undergraduates to have prior research experience when joining a new research team.
Most faculty mentors are looking for students who are self-motivated, hard-working, enthusiastic, positive and sincerely interested in the topic. They also appreciate students who are easy to work with and eager to learn new things.
You can be all of these things without having previous research experience!
The stipend is sent directly to your student account. If you have direct deposit set up and have no balance on your student account, the stipend will be transferred to your bank account. If you do not have your direct deposit set up in your student account, a check will be mailed to you. In the event that you have an outstanding balance on your student account, the funds will be used toward that balance.
Important
It is possible that this award could affect your financial aid package. If you are concerned that your financial aid may be impacted, please contact a Financial Aid Advisor.
Interested in learning more?
Complete a short contact form if you want to be kept updated about future tasks and deadlines.
You are not obligated in any way by completing the form and you are not enrolled in the program by completing the form.