Enrichment Activities

This research seminar series is a course that brings speakers from all over the country to present to underrepresented students in the sciences about the road to their careers, their research in which they are involved, and topics centered on gaining entrance into doctoral programs.

Our priority is to invite underrepresented minority scientists who are dedicated to helping minority students achieve success in biomedical and behavioral research. We make a special effort to invite speakers who have graduated from CSU Dominguez Hills and were former MARC and RISE trainees. It is important that our current students see that our former students with similar backgrounds have become established in their careers.

Our Core Curriculum Course is designed to teach students the responsible conduct of research and to introduce research students to practical aspects of research. The emphasis of this training is to communicate detailed technical information as well as training of students with limited or no prior experience in everyday activities associated with the research process. The students learn about ethical issues in conducting human, animal and DNA studies, chemical and biohazard safety and best practices in the laboratory. It also includes elementary biostatistics concepts and available resources in information retrieval, data management, and storage. The course is scheduled as an intensive five-day course at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institution at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA. The training consists of a series of separated sessions, each prepared by a different faculty member individually. The training combines didactic information, with subsequent practical‐oriented sessions, such as tours of the vivarium, participation in a lab safety inspection, a training exercise in research library search techniques, etc. Topics covered include ethics inhuman subject research, practical aspects of animal husbandry, radiation safety in the medical research environment, computing in biomedicine, using the biomedical library, conflict of interests, mentor/mentee responsibilities and relationships, and responsible authorship and publication.

Our Graduate Admissions Workshop is facilitated by Dr. Donald Asher of Asher Associates. He is an acclaimed speaker in the area of professional development and higher education. In this workshop he provides much insight into the graduate admission process. Topics discussed are how to prepare for graduate school (i.e. summer internships, research experience, publication, etc.), strategies on searching for the best schools and faculty members that matches your research interest, best approaches for getting the best recommendation letters, tips on writing a great personal statement, and funding graduate school.

Our Math and English workshop is designed to increase students’ English and mathematics proficiency. This workshop is intended to polish the knowledge students have already attained in their required English and math classes. Therefore, the workshops will be intense and taught at a high level on selected topics that will be useful toward success in graduate school.

The English workshop will polish students skills in the following specific areas:

• Analyzing and evaluating written material and synthesizing information from it
• Extending vocabulary improving reading comprehension, controlling the elements of standard written English
• Supporting ideas with relevant reasons and examples
• Comparing claims and evidence
• Articulating complex ideas clearly and effectively
• Acquiring advanced technical vocabulary
• Relating words to each other
• Recognizing relationships between words and concepts
• Breaking down sentences and analyzing the relationships among components

The mathematics workshop will polish students skills in the following specific areas:

• Understanding data analysis
• Mastering elemental probability and statistics
• Mastering coordinate geometry
• Mastering lines and angles
• Understanding and mastering triangles, quadrilaterals, and polygons as well as angle relations within them
• Understanding and mastering circles and uniform solids
• Mastering the basic concepts of algebra (exponents, roots, order of operations, algebraic expressions, factoring expressions, inequalities, function problems)
• Solving word problems

We believe this activity will improve our students’ language and math skills significantly and this improvement will be reflected in their coursework and also in the process of applying to graduate school, making them more competitive. Finally and most importantly, we believe that this activity will provide our students with important analytical skills required in order to complete a Ph.D. program successfully.