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Related Links
Research Requirement Guidelines
Research Directory for Undergraduates
The Pilot Curriculum Major
Overview of the Pilot Curriculum
The Pilot Curriculum goes one step further by requiring that all students have a research experience that is only an option for students in the current curriculum. In their research experience, students will participate directly in discovery that advances knowledge in the field. Understanding in a certain field is fully achieved only when one can appreciate the conditions under which claims to knowledge in that field may be validated. There is no better way to do that than to ask a question for which one's own research can supply an answer. Through participating in the discovery of new knowledge, one appreciates not only how secure our knowledge can be but also how fragile it is and subject to revision in light of additional evidence.
How Your Research Experience will Complement Your Major
Do not be concerned in the first two years of your program if you are unsure exactly how you will fulfill this requirement. That will become clear only as you become fully engaged in your major, normally in the junior and senior years. Indeed, developing and carrying out a research project will be the culminating experience of your major, one which virtually all students who do it regard as the most intellectually satisfying experience in their Penn education.
How Your Coursework within Your Major will Help You Prepare
You are expected to declare a major by the second semester of the sophomore year before advance registration for the fall of your junior year. Once you have a major in mind, you should begin identifying tools you will need to equip you for a research project that will most likely occupy you during your senior year. For instance, you may need knowledge of statistics and experimental methods or of textual analysis, which can be acquired through specialized courses recommended by your major advisor. Or you may need advanced language or computing skills. In every case, the introductory and intermediate courses taken in your major will provide an indispensable foundation of analytical skills and substantive knowledge in your field out of which your conception of a research topic or thesis will emerge.