Challenges and Rewards in Directing Undergraduate Research Projects

Over the last year I directed a few undergraduate projects involving depositing and characterizing films at nanoscale. Some of the research was done exclusively at Austin College, and some was in collaboration with a group within the Materials Science and Engineering Department at University of Texas at Dallas. The number of students in the teams I directed varied between one and three, and the students' prior experience with the systems under study and their physics background varied greatly. The measurements included Hall effect, electrical, and optical measurements. I will discuss both the challenges and the rewards of directing the different teams.