Alyssa Bostrom (center front row) pictured here at MARCUS in 2011
Alyssa Bostrom, Roanoke College senior, presented her research project on Immigration and the media at the Eastern Sociological Society Conference. The conference was held at the Millennium Hotel in New York City this past February (23-26). The Eastern Sociological Society was founded in 1930 and is a non-profit organization devoted to promoting excellence in sociological scholarship and instruction.
While Alyssa’s project is focused in the sociology field, she is actually a Spanish major with a Communications minor. She became interested in the subject of immigration when she took a mass communications class and learned about immigration. Her project currently focuses on how immigration is portrayed in Spanish media versus English media and she is hoping to expand the project to look at how the current election plays into immigration.
This project is an independent study and was Alyssa’s own concept. She started her proposal last October and most of it was done during the summer of 2011. Dr. Shannon Anderson is Alyssa’s faculty mentor for the project. Since most of this project was done over the summer, Alyssa worked with Dr. Anderson via telephone and Alyssa stated that “It was cool having in depth input from a professor that you can’t get in the classroom. I learned how to do advanced research one on one while doing something that means something to me.”
Alyssa first presented her project this past parent’s weekend and then was advised to apply to present at this conference. There were over 500 presenters and projects at the conference and being chosen to present as an undergraduate student is a very prestigious honor as Alyssa was amongst many graduate students and professors presenting their projects.
For incoming freshman thinking about research, Alyssa advises that “if they have an idea, they should go for it because the professors will help and while its nerve-racking presenting, it’s nice to know that people want to hear what you have learned through research.”
For more information on the Eastern Sociological Society you can visit: https://www.essnet.org/