Hi all! If anyone still gets notifications or anything from this thread, I wanted to give a bit of an exciting update and also ask a question…
First of all, my debate partner and I won the JV round of a fairly small (40 pairs total) international invitational tournament a few weeks ago! Our school has no coach so we just don’t have the debate education to do varsity, which makes me feel really awkward as a junior (I had to tell the finals judges that I was the closest thing we had to a coach while the private school Canadians we were against had three coaches in the room) so I’m so happy that I was able to help us get our first tournament win in 6+ years!
I also was made captain of my two track events, triple and long jump, and got auto-varsity because we have a tiny team. I’m honestly pretty bad at track so I don’t know if I should include this on my application because it feels dishonest, since most captains and varsity athletes are actually good at what they do and I’m just good at teaching conditioning workouts and proper form…
Finally, my big question is: Would it be better to assist a professor at a CSU with her own research (which would get me credited on her paper) and also have her assist/guide my two research projects mentioned in my post, or just have a professor at Cal supervise me on the two projects as I initially said in the post?
I originally was recommended to the Cal prof by one of her colleagues who I babysat for, and we met over Zoom. She reviewed my project ideas and said she would definitely be willing to mentor me and supervise my research over Zoom, she also said that she could write me a LOR if I wanted. But then my Spanish teacher asked me if I would be interested in being a research assistant to a professor she knows at a CSU whose work focuses on rights for migrant workers. Among other things, I would be translating interview transcripts from Spanish to English, and would be listed on her paper when it was published. The CSU professor was also willing to supervise and help me with the two other research projects I wanted to do, and now I’m conflicted.
I really would like to do in-person research and have family near the CSU who I could stay with, getting on a paper is really appealing, and I would love to get to use my Spanish skills to help with important work. But I’m worried that a) Assisting with research on Spanish-speaking migrant workers’ living conditions and workers rights will just not tie in to the rest of my ECs and make me seem like a bad fit for a Middle Eastern Studies major, although I will be doing an asych Arabic class online the whole summer, and b) If the former concern is true, and I should leave my involvement in the workers’ rights research off my application, would I be better off pursuing the same research projects with a professor at Cal compared to a professor at a CSU?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with CSUs but I’m worried AOs will prefer students who researched with “prestigious” professors at more widely-known institutions, and I’m scared that my activities already don’t have a super closely theme that ties them together.
Any help would be super appreciated!!!