Consider Your Curiosity and Intersectional Lens

The Netflix Dilemma

Choosing an experiential learning opportunity to pursue can feel as overwhelming and frustrating as choosing what to watch on Netflix—with more at stake than a boring movie.

Like the never-ending titles to stream, many of the paths ahead are unknown and will require some exploration to discover. But exploring can reveal some surprises—and you might find something that feels as specific to you as the categories on your favorite streaming service.

How can you be interested in something you’ve never seen?

Pattern Recognition

You might not find your fit at the end of a night of binge scrolling, but the process can work like the AI suggesting titles on your favorite platform—informed by the patterns of your engagement.

Your curiosity can guide you toward experiences that bring you into contact with new people, ideas, goals and more. UROP encourages you to take notice of the patterns of your experience—and explore what engages your curiosity and inspires your creativity.

Curiosity in Context

Trust Your Curiosity

You are more than your academic interests, abilities and GPA. Your goals also involve more than a degree and a career.

You have strengths and experiences that give you unique insight and the ability to contribute to change in your communities. But you might not feel confident about where you want to go and how you want to grow.

As you follow your curiosity, keep in mind that it’s a path-finding tool—not the path itself. You can use it like a compass to find your way forward, though you might not know the destination (and we all wish we had a map).

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Choosing an experiential learning experience, or even a major, can feel as overwhelming as “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It may even feel like defining the purpose of your existence.

UROP doesn’t have the answer to the meaning of life, but we encourage you to stay curious about your life experiences and the next steps forward—and understand that you’re developing skills for the journey (even on days when you feel lost).

Reframing Purpose

You might have a clear sense of purpose, or direction, and see the path ahead—even if it looks like an intimidating climb. If the way forward is less clear, it could be helpful to reframe how we think about “purpose.”

Considering purpose as more of a process can recenter you in your thinking and highlights all that your context, abilities and confidence have enabled you to become and contribute—to this point and into the future.

Curiosity | Confidence | Context

Consider where your curiosity is pointing you and where you can draw the confidence to explore (and expand) your context.

Reflect on the questions included here and see what intersections appear.

Curiosity

What curiosities do you have about your academic and creative interests?
What excites you about your field of study, major or developing interest?

Confidence

What strengths and skills do you already have?
What life experiences give you unique insight?

Context

How do your academic interests connect with your personal and professional goals?
What change do you want to see in communities you care about?

Download Worksheet: Curiosity, Confidence and Context

Your Intersectional Lens

Power in Perspective

All aspects of your identity and individual approach to processing your experience, or “ways of knowing,” give you valuable insight and enable your curiosity.

Your lived experience provides a wealth of knowledge that forms the foundation of your understanding and can take many forms. Your identity gives you a lens on your context that can reveal new ways of seeing old ideas and new possibilities.

Your Intersectional Lens

How might components of your identity work with your ways of knowing to provide a new perspective on an established idea or point to an unexplored idea?

Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality?

Kimberlé Crenshaw, a 2017 NAIS People of Color Conference speaker, civil rights advocate, and professor at UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, talks about intersectional theory.

Your Ways of Knowing

Adapted from TOK Journal Diagram "Areas of Knowledge"

Down the Rabbit Hole

College life can be as disorienting and isolating as Alice wandering alone in wonderland with unknowns beyond each step and everyone asking “Who are you?”

Though you might not have a clear answer, your certainty can come into focus in encounters with the unknown. Experiential learning is driven by curiosity directed at many unknowns, often mirrors the unscripted nature of our lives—and also requires a little imagination.

Open Questions

By engaging your open questions in conversation with mentors, you can clarify your values and develop your identity—which might still feel like an open question.

Your curiosity is a powerful tool that is unique to you because it’s an expression of your individual identity with all its' intersections, providing you a singular lens to examine your context (and a way for others to see new possibilities).

Student to Scholar

Questions and Answers

As a student you have been asked to answer many questions after long nights studying alone, but working as a scholar is a collaborative process enabled by your curiosity and creativity.

Due to the collaborative nature of most creative and academic work, the skills needed to succeed involve more than your technical abilities (and often despite them)—and range from communication to creativity. Your ability to contribute is not measured by your GPA and your perspective is powerful.

Students

Working Independently
Thinking Collectively

Scholars

Working Collaboratively
Thinking Independently

Black, Elizabeth L. "Partnering with Undergraduate Research Professionals: An Interview with Tim O'Neil." The Credo Second-Year Transition Guide. Credo Reference, 2019, 33-35.

Reflection Questions

What patterns are emerging in your experience that inspire your curiosity?
What life experiences give you unique insight?
How might your unique perspective bring new insight to an established conversation?
What excites you about your field of study, major or developing interest?
How do your academic interests connect with your personal and professional goals?
What strengths and skills do you already have?
What change do you want to see in communities you care about?

Reflect

Consider your curiosities, career path and the change you want to make.

Consider the Opportunity to Engage

Consider Your Curiosity and Intersectional Lens

Inform Your Thinking

Connect

Build relationships with peers and faculty in your campus communities.

Find a Faculty Mentor

Connecting with Faculty

Engage

Pursue an internship or apply for funding to support your work with faculty.

Explore Methods and Plan

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Consider Your Curiosity and Intersectional Lens

Consider Your Curiosity and Intersectional Lens

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