In past reports we have mentioned the long-standing interdisciplinary Berkeley Undergraduate Journal and the newer Berkeley Scientific, which is refereed by Berkeley faculty members. Both of these journals are published under the auspices of Undergraduate and Interdisciplinary Studies. The campus also offers more discipline-specific opportunities for undergraduates to publish their research. For instance, The Active Intellect, published under the auspices of the Association of Psychology Undergraduates, contains abstracts of senior theses as well as selected student research papers. And 1998-99 saw the publication of a new journal on campus, The Thinker, a vehicle for undergraduate research in the growing and vibrant field of Cognitive Science.

Some major programs make special research opportunities available to their students. In order to encourage undergraduate involvement in research, the Film Studies program offers an internship with the librarian at the Pacific Film Archive. The internship includes a series of lectures on research strategies and an overview of reference resources in Film Studies, both in print and on the web. As their final project, students research and compile a bibliography on a topic of their choice. These bibliographies often become the core of an honors thesis or final course project. In addition, the bibliographies are put on file at the Archives, so that other students and researchers can make use of them.

Yet another major program requires a special research experience of its students. Undergraduates enrolled in the Forest Science major program are required to fulfill a summer camp requirement between their sophomore and junior year. This gives students a chance to spend time in the field with the faculty. The courses they take at summer camp all require students to collect and analyze field data. The final summer-camp course requires that the students survey and inventory the forest and wildlife resources on a 300-400-acre plot of land, and develop a management plan for the area they have surveyed.

Some student research projects directly benefit their major departments. As we mentioned in the section on technology, above, two undergraduates in Philosophy researched and assessed available software tools for teaching the department’s courses on logic, probability, and statistical inference. Their research has already yielded a positive effect: students enrolled in the courses utilizing the software packages report that the technology made it easier for them to master the material and improved their overall understanding of the subject area.