Something changes when the idea is YOURS

By Elizabeth Morison

Since our very first day at the OTS office in San José, we’ve been told that everything we would learn over the semester was going to culminate into an enormous independent research project, designed, investigated, written and presented by us. None of us had ever had so much ownership over our work before – we were used to reproducing assignments for classes at our home universities that had been completed before by hundreds of past students. Back then, the prospect of having autonomy over these projects was exciting, but way off – like we were never actually going to get to the point of doing it.

As the weeks went on, and La Selva was becoming sooner and sooner, that feeling of anticipation shifted to feeling overwhelmed. We were gaining experience with our visiting professors during facultyled projects in Palo Verde and Las Cruces, realizing how much planning goes into research, and then how those plans are flipped upside down as soon as you’re in the field, collecting data for yourself. We learned, very quickly, how statistical analysis can be a little bit tricky, and that it takes a lot of personal engagement in a project to motivate you to invest time and energy in it.

          Faster than any of us were expecting, homestays were over, we’d hiked up and out of Monteverde, and we were back from Spring Break – the independent project was looming. Students paired off based on common research interests, and Nicole and I discussed project ideas. We’d walked by countless leaf-cutter ant trails, and immediately decided that they would be our study species. It was the first time I’d been asked by a professor: what are YOU interested in? I’d never had ownership over where I invested my skills, time, and energy before, and it brought motivation out of me that I didn’t know I had – who knew a plant-obsessed Australian gal from the temperate coastal zone would be so passionate about Neotropical insects? I sure didn’t.

Being asked what I’m interested in and trusted to follow through on that idea is an experience that came at just the right time for me. My feelings of being overwhelmed pushed me just far enough out of my comfort zone to motivate me even more to rise to the challenge. In pitch black, until the early hours of the morning, we collected and processed data, with the best attitudes I’ve ever felt for a project. Even through the tricky part of analysis, I owned this idea, so I was committed to being thorough. I wanted to uncover the literature, and support my findings with other research – leave no stone unturned. I didn’t want there to be a single opportunity for my ideas to be misunderstood, so I had to write more clearly than ever. They were right, on that very first day – this project was the product of everything I’d gained over the semester. And I’m really, really proud of it!