THE student participants at the 3rd Annual Northern Marianas College Research Symposium want to be part of a workforce prepared for tomorrow.
On Friday, April 14, inside the Crowne Plaza Hibiscus Hall, over 40 students and two NMC faculty members presented on STEM research projects they conducted earlier this year.
One participant, NMC student Naureen Lozada, said she will benefit from the experience, even though she isn’t going to go into the STEM field.
“Coming from somebody who’s introverted and not well spoken in public, this is something that will help me get better [at public speaking],” Lozada said. “I want to be in a management position but if I don’t have the skillset to speak to my own employees then how can I be a good manager?”
Lozada presented a project titled “Impact of a Northern Marianas College Degree on Employee Readiness” alongside co-researchers Katrina Valenzuela, Halle Kenty, and Gerald Crisostomo. The group surveyed NMC graduates to assess how well prepared they felt for the jobs they landed after receiving degrees.
Valenzuela told Variety that their research “[gives] the students a voice.”
Kenty said “it was nice to practice statistics in something like this, a symposium. It definitely is a good experience for all of us.”
Adriana Tamparong said being at a symposium as a student is invigorating.
“It’s very exciting because this is only the third time NMC is doing this and we’re actually first-year students,” Tamparong said.
She and research partner Queeneth Aquino are nursing majors. Their research set out to find if the NMC campus has more native or invasive species of ants.
Aquino said although nursing and insect research don’t exactly coincide, it’s still important to do STEM, and that she’s interested in science regardless of whether she’ll become a scientist or not.
“Although [biology] is not our first option, maybe sometime in the future we might come back to this and dig deeper,” Aquino said.
Dr. Wilson Gaul is a professor at NMC and assisted Tamparong and Aquino with their research.
“You don’t need prior knowledge to get into STEM at all,” Dr. Gaul said, when asked how students who are interested in science can approach research. “What you need to do is be excited and be willing to put in some effort. Talk to a faculty member. Just try it. Usually you find you’re better at it than you think.”
Another of Gaul’s students, Alex Tudela, was at the symposium presenting research that he originally shared at an event off–island.
Tudela encourages other Chamorros to get into the field. “We need to raise a lot of individuals who are from here to be in [STEM] so that they can help impact the community where they live.”
Alexi Rebuenog and Joan Pangilinan stand with their research presentation titled “Hermit crabs know best.”
Queeneth Aquino and Adriana Tamparong’s research centered on ant species present on NMC campus.
Alex Tudela, who has previously presented his work on Guam, researched the dawn choruses of different birds on Saipan.
Halle Kenty, Gerald Crisostomo, Katrina Valenzuela, and Naureen Lozada conducted research using the statistics methods they learned at NMC.
