Heather McAlister shares her experiences performing undergraduate research in South Africa with her research partner Khadija Ga’al and sharing their research at NCUR 2012.
Hi, my name is Heather McAlister and I am a fourth year student in African Studies and Political Science. I was among the first group of students to participate in the African Studies Abroad course to South Africa to study Health and Health Care in Post-Apartheid South Africa. We learned about the role of traditional medicine in South Africa, saw the differences between private and public health care and met several guest lectures specializing in fields from Nursing to Social Work to Gender Studies.
The Research
I had the incredible privilege of staying after the course was over to do an internship with the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division with my research partner Khadija Ga’al.
We were given the task of doing a qualitative analysis of media portrayals (blogs and newspaper articles) of an HIV/AIDS
prevention policy suggestion put forward by Dr. Alan Whiteside and Dr. Justin Parkhurst. We read all the media portrayals we could find about the topic and then analyzed their content in terms of tone, presence of certain key words and a variety of other criteria.
This opportunity was incredible because we worked with inspiring and engaged academics who have done excellent research in the fields I am interested in working in someday. I also was exposed to performing undergraduate research while being immersed in a different culture which provided me with interesting insights.
NCUR
This exciting experience also provided us with the opportunity to be the first Carleton undergraduate students to attend the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Ogden, Utah last year. I loved having the chance to share my passion for the research we did in South Africa with students from around the world and getting to meet other research-oriented students was a great opportunity. Our research presentation was displayed through a poster so guests were able to view our work and ask any questions they had.
Given the somewhat controversial nature of our research topic, it was particularly interesting to explain some of the myths and stigmas around HIV/AIDS and to discuss how the media portrays this information. It was rewarding to know that students who knew little about the topic were able to leave our presentation more knowledgeable. Viewing other students’ posters and presentations gave me exposure to a wide range of topics which helped to shape my appreciation for the breadth of academic pursuits available and opened my mind to new ways of thinking.
I also thoroughly enjoyed the graduate studies fair as it gave me the chance to see the endless possibilities available to students after their undergraduate degree is complete. Overall, the opportunity to do undergraduate research in South Africa and then to attend the NCUR were very important milestones in my life and have continued to shape my academic pursuits. For students who are interested in hands-on learning and who love to share their research experiences with others, I would highly recommend participating in undergraduate research and applying for NCUR.