Promoting Research Readiness and Broadening Student Understanding of and Skills for Biomedical Careers

Undergraduate students in physiology and other life science programs commonly intend to pursue careers in research or health-care professions. Often, however, they are poorly prepared for research and are discouraged when they are not accepted into professional programs. To address this, we created Research Readiness and Advancing Biomedical Discoveries, a third-year course for life science students. The course includes a scaffolded research proposal assignment along with online pre-class modules and extensive in-class group work on topics such as career planning, project management and commercialization. To assess the course, we surveyed students both during and one to three years post course completion. Students agreed or strongly agreed that the course prepared them for research opportunities (4.17 ± 0.07, mean ± SEM, 5 = strongly agree) and prompted them to consider flexible career paths (4.26 ± 0.06). Of the 63 former students (alumni) who completed the survey (a 29% response rate), almost two thirds were pursuing advanced degrees with most of the others in science-related positions. Alumni indicated that the course improved their skill set to achieve future goals (4.14 ± 0.10); consider flexible career paths (4.16 ± 0.10); and prepare for research opportunities (4.00 +/- 0.12). The most common themes to the question: “ What aspects of the course helped with your current career pursuits” were: working in teams (68%) and developing and writing an original research proposal (68%). Our findings will encourage others to contemplate a similar course or activities/assignments and illustrate the value of surveying former students.