Recently we have learned Notre Dame's administration is hesitant to promote research efforts in various University departments because they are concerned that it may degrade the quality of an undergraduate education. This is a common opinion due to the fact that professors at many of the most prestigious research universities are known for directing their attention away from undergraduate teaching and towards their graduate students and personal research.

However, as electrical engineering and computer science majors who have participated in undergraduate research, we feel that the opportunities afforded to students at Notre Dame through research are of immeasurable benefit.

In addition to gaining specific skills and knowledge in the field, it allows the student to accumulate valuable contacts in industry and academia, better define their own career goals and interests, learn what "real" work in the field entails and participate in creating some of the most cutting edge technology today.

Graduate school admission committees and employers are impressed with undergraduate researchers because it reveals their sincere interest in the field and an unquestioned self motivation.

Classes provide important perspectives and general background knowledge, but undergraduate research expands upon that by forcing the student to apply that knowledge to a previously unsolved problem. It challenges the students' creativity and allows abstract "book learning" to be used to create something original.

Notre Dame is a unique institution that is poised to contribute greatly to society in many ways in the future. We would like to see Notre Dame interact as an equal with the best institutions in the world, and to do this in the field of science or engineering requires that Notre Dame build strong research programs.

While we understand the concern that this may detract from undergraduate education, we testify that it has only enhanced our own. We feel that Notre Dame's commitment to undergraduates is uniquely strong enough to keep us from experiencing the detachment between undergraduates and professors commonly found at other institutions.

Kevin Hennessy, Arun Rodrigues,

David Rink, Chris Sanabria,

Enrique Blair, George Viamontes,

Joseph Taylor, Branden Moore

Tim Dysart and Andrew Sordi

Undergraduate participants in research

April 26, 2001

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