Mandatory Freshman Year Research

With some trepidation, my colleagues and I at Loyola university Chicago, instituted a mandatory undergraduate research program for our first-year physics majors in the Spring semester of 1996. With some evolutionary changes along the way, the Freshman Projects program will be celebrating its 25th year this spring. In this talk, I will give a description of types of research projects students have worked on, the effect these projects have on the careers of these students, and how our physics program has been significantly transformed in the process.