Student Stories

The BLUElab NicarAGUA team, in partnership with FNE International, has been collaborating with the El Jicaral, Nicaragua community since September 2015. Since that time, three in-country trips have been conducted. First, in 2016, a preliminary needs assessment trip was conducted in the surrounding communities. Through extensive surveys and interviews with members of communities visited, it was determined that the greatest need of this community was access to water during the dry season.

Sometimes, working at the library is like a box of tennis balls.

Perch’s mission is to make research more accessible to undergraduates.
UROP, the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, does a great job at its mission: helping underrepresented and first-generation students gain their first research experience and make the most of it. When UROP started 25 years ago, it was able to accommodate every eligible student who applied.That’s no longer true. The number of undergraduates seeking research experience has grown tremendously in the last decade. Why?

For many students, undergraduate research is their first experience working on real-world problems that may provide widespread impact and help people in the future. Through research, students gain valuable critical thinking skills, a new way of asking questions. Research is a chance for students to apply what they’ve learned in class to the real world, to venture boldly beyond the maps of the known. Research is a chance to improve people’s lives, it’s the chance to get a law of nature named after you, it’s the universe trying to understand itself. Not to mention that undergraduate research experience is now necessary rather than an added bonus when applying to graduate school, industrial R&D jobs, and numerous other career paths.

A week or so ago, I went to pick up a book from Hatcher when my attention was captured by a Bikini Kill poster. It was part of an exhibit in the Hatcher North Lobby on feminist zines. As I wandered through the display of drawings, poems, rants, cartoons, and collages, I was struck by the unique power that zines have to speak directly to the heart. Even though these zines were made and distributed decades ago, I still found myself nodding in agreement with the insights and raw emotions found in their pages.

It is very, very easy to feel intimidated walking into the Hatcher Graduate Library. The front steps are right off the ever-bustling Diag, and they lead to a grand lobby filled with mosaics and elitist Latin proverbs without a book in sight.

Students often find themselves at a loss for how to walk into a library and ask a person for help, which, in turn, prevents them from learning about the wonderful faculty who are hired to help them.

I joined ScholarSpace in January 2017 hoping to refine and share my interest in the Adobe Creative Suite with University, and while I have had that opportunity, I have also learned so much more.

Most University of Michigan students are well aware of the boundless opportunities offered by the Library within the pages of our books and in the depths of our digital resources. What may be unfamiliar to students are the numerous opportunities to engage with the Library beyond the stacks and databases. The Library Student Engagement Ambassadors, a group of eight undergraduate students with varying majors and interests, have been hard at work all semester bringing the campus community exciting events and a student perspective on Library resources.

As a Library Environments Support Team member-- everything I do, centers around delighting the students and faculty and creating environments conducive to sharing, learning, growing, and accessibility. From observing how many people use the book drop box, to helping to create a workshop dedicated to having students envision their perfect “Library of the Future.”

The UM Library Student Engagement Ambassadors are a group of Undergraduates who work for the library to engage peers through programming and social media. They will use the Student Stories Blog throughout the year in order to share their experiences and the student perspective.

The library is more than a place to read, study, or research. As the Graduate Intern for the Library Student Engagement Program I have found that library to be a place that stimulates creativity, fosters self-efficacy, and even creates a bit of fun. To me, the library has become a place for growth, where engaged learning is not merely in a classroom, but also in the place that prepares students for the classroom. As the program assistant for the Library Student Engagement Ambassadors, I see this transformative learning firsthand, and even better, I experience it alongside the students I mentor.