What Good Is Undergraduate Research, Anyway?

By LILA GUTERMAN

Many students benefit, but studies show weaknesses in current practices

In a basement laboratory at Haverford College, Monica Kishore and Peter J.J. O'Malley, two undergraduates, have hit a snag in a fluid-dynamics experiment they're conducting.

The two physics majors are doing research in the laboratory of Jerry P. Gollub, a professor of physics. The experiment they have helped to design requires them to find a way to get tiny plastic beads to hover at the interface between a