Welcome to VU-LEARNS, the Vanderbilt Undergraduates Learning & Exploring the Accomplishments of Researchers & their Novel Studies (yes, it’s an acronym). We are an initiative coordinated through the Mayfield Experience and Office of Housing and Residential Experience which seeks to increase scientific literacy on campus and motivate students to explore research opportunities during their academic careers.
While journals and news sites can provide detailed information about researchers’ accomplishments and discovery, VU-LEARNS aims to the address the more personal aspects. Why do researchers do what they do? What motivates their inquiries? How did they become involved in research, and why should you? Our goal is to present answers to these questions through interviews and discussions with researchers on Vanderbilt’s campus, in all subjects from the hard sciences to the humanities and everything in between.
You can find our most recently-posted interviews in the right-hand sidebar, along with additional information about the project. Feel free to leave comments on your thoughts and opinions, or share posts with your friends on campus. We hope to maintain a regular upload schedule, consisting mostly of researcher interviews.
Not everyone will conduct research during their academic careers, and not everyone needs to. But, at a research institution such as Vanderbilt University, the opportunities abound for students to explore their horizons and find areas of study they can fall in love with. VU-LEARNS hopes to increase student engagement with the research taking place on campus, which could be literally right next-door.
