Eight Baker University students traveled to Chicago before Easter break to present their work at the annual conference of the Midwest Sociological Society.
This year’s joint meeting with the North Central Sociological Association provided sociologists and students from across the region an opportunity to present original research.
Baker students prepared poster presentations of coursework from different areas that explored some portion of sociology and answered questions from fellow students and scholars during the conference.
Tim Buzzell, political science and sociology department chair, said this was the second year the university had taken sociology students to present work at the conference. He said the conference was a great outlet for Baker students to demonstrate their work and said the students performed well.
“Baker students are always very impressive in their presentation of what they’ve learned on this campus,” he said.
Senior Anthony Billinger said he presented criminology research he conducted during the fall semester in a computer crime and deviance course at Baker. The research explored computer crime perception among college students.
Billinger said the conference was a positive experience.
“One, it’s a good résumé builder, and two, it’s a good experience not only talking to others, but being able to answer questions about your work,” he said. “People are not going to hold back anything when they’re asking you questions, so you get to practice speaking on your feet.”
Seniors Jaci Kettler, Jen Thierer and Eddie Cardona presented research in the political science field. Their research sought to explain differences in spending in political advertisements.
Kettler said it was beneficial to get feedback from others attending the conference.
“We had people stop by and ask questions,” she said. “We got positive reviews, and it was nice to get something back on what we could try to do differently to make our work better.”
She said it was good to get a look at what other scholars were doing as well.
