Christa Waterwiese, a freshman at Roanoke College, is one of the students under the work study research assistant program. In the program, students are hired and paid to work alongside a professor on a research project. There is a variety of research projects spread across all the academic departments on campus.
Christa works in the English department with Dr. Kuchar. The two research Eastern European Literature from the 19th and 20th centuries. Christa researches novels and authors included in Dr. Kuchar’s publications and classes. She also occasionally does some Russian translations.
Christa has always been interested in research.
“It is something I do in my free time anyway, so when there was an opportunity to research a topic I love and gain the experience of working a professor I jumped at the chance!”
Christa loves doing research with a professor.
“Dr. Kuchar has taught me so much about research; the best tools, the best way to conduct it, etc. She has impacted the way I look at things and the way I do work for my classes.”
One of the most challenging aspects of Christa’s research so far was during the process of translating a story.
“Dr. Kuchar was asked to translate a story from Ukrainian into English for a student of one of her associates in the Ukraine. So while Dr. Kuchar dictated a rough translation I typed the English. What made it so fun was the story made absolutely no sense to us and we were really struggling to understand what was going on. We need to take a lot of laugh breaks!”
Christa recommends students get involved in research.
“You get the opportunity to become friends with one of the professors, you learn valuable skills about research you can apply to your classes and your future careers, and it looks great on resumes for any job or graduate school program!”