How studying at a research university can shape your college experience

Imagine publishing your first first-author paper on a newly discovered interstellar object only a few years after walking into an astronomy college class.

Or winning first place in your category at an undergraduate research forum with a paper that investigates how to reduce the side effects of a popular chemotherapy drug.

It happened to Atsuhiro Yaginuma, when he was an astrophysics senior, and Hari Ramakrishnan, when he was still a first-year physiology student, respectively. As undergraduate students at Michigan State University, both combined classroom learning with hands-on research, working alongside faculty at the forefront of their fields.

MSU offers its students a variety of ways to engage with the process of creating new knowledge that makes a difference in the world — an advantage that can transform one’s college experience.

At a research university like MSU, you don’t just learn what’s already known. You learn from people creating new knowledge, have opportunities to contribute to discovery yourself and build the skills to tackle questions that don’t yet have answers.

Participate in research as an undergraduate

For many Spartans, undergraduate research is one of the defining experiences of college. At MSU, thousands of undergraduates participate in research each year, exploring questions across nearly every discipline.

Students have many ways to get started, from connecting with faculty through MSU’s Office for Undergraduate Research, or UR, to finding research positions, mentorship and other opportunities through Pathway to Research, Handshake and other resource pages.

Since the office’s founding in 2005, undergrad involvement in research has grown significantly. Brian Keas, director of the office, points to the University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum, or UURAF, as an indicator. “Participation there has grown more than twelve-fold, from approximately 85 students in 2005 to more than 1,100 in 2026,” Keas says.

Apart from faculty who give advice, students can get in touch with peers who have a wealth of information to share about the ins and outs of doing research as undergraduates in fields as wide-ranging as psychology, neuroscience, communicative science and disorders, molecular genetics and computer engineering.

“Peer advising serves as a means for network building and it allows for undergraduate students who are already in research positions to gain mentoring experience,” says Keas. “And since students respond better to their peers, our workshops and other events have better attendance and engagement when peers are leading.”

In the summer of 2025, Yaginuma was already working on a paper when 3I/ATLAS was detected. It became a turning point. “3I/ATLAS immediately caught my attention,” he says. “I was especially excited about the idea of studying this new interstellar object and asking whether a spacecraft could reach it.”

He shifted all his research to 3I/ATLAS and got to work contributing to a paper reporting initial observations of 3I/ATLAS with Darryl Seligman, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, who was already advising Yaginuma.

That paper, initiated by Seligman and written with other co-authors, was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The experience of getting hands-on involved with research at the forefront of discovery has motivated Yaginuma to pursue a doctorate, and he has chosen to remain at MSU for graduate school, despite being accepted into other competitive programs.

Contributing to and writing his first papers changed Yaginuma’s outlook on the academic world and his future career. “It made the scientific community feel much more real and open to me,” he says. “It gave me confidence that I could contribute to research.”

Be inspired by faculty who create new knowledge

At a research university like MSU, professors aren’t just experts in their fields — they are actively expanding those fields with new insights.

With research expenditures reaching nearly $1 billion in 2025, Spartan researchers are pushing the boundaries of discovery every day. With more than 100 innovative research centers and institutes that employ an international community of scientists and scholars, so far MSU faculty have developed more than 3,300 inventions.

But the value of that research for students goes beyond numbers. What students learn in the classroom is directly influenced by the latest developments that faculty contribute to in their fields.

Take cisplatin, the cancer drug studied by Ramakrishnan, the physiology student.

Its use as a cancer-fighting chemotherapy treatment was discovered at MSU in 1965 by a group of MSU College of Natural Science researchers led by Barnett Rosenberg. In addition to shaping a whole generation of oncologists who are treating testicular, ovarian, bladder, lung and stomach cancers with the drug, it has also fueled new research that continues to save and improve lives.

Sachi Horibata, an assistant professor in the Precision Health Program and the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, who focuses on cancer drug resistance mechanisms and identification of therapeutic targets for personalized cancer treatments, continues this work.

Horibata has identified how ovarian cancer cells become resistant to chemotherapy, including cisplatin, and discovered a protein that, when blocked, can restore the drug’s effectiveness. This advanced scientific understanding impacts future physicians and patients alike.

MSU undergraduate students are making contributions to those same fields. For Hari Ramakrishnan, who won the grand prize at the University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum in the STEM category in 2022 for his paper on how to reduce the side effects of cisplatin, this powerful early research experience helped him see himself as a scientist.

“As a freshman, I remember feeling nervous and wondering whether I had enough experience to present my research alongside older students,” says Ramakrishnan.

With the encouragement of his mentor, Geoffroy Laumet, associate professor in the Department of Physiology in the College of Natural Science, Ramakrishnan gained confidence.

“Laumet took me seriously as a young researcher, helping me become more comfortable asking questions, working through uncertainty and understanding that research rarely follows a perfectly straight path,” Ramakrishnan says. “What made it especially meaningful was realizing that I was not just learning information from a textbook. I was helping investigate a question that could eventually improve how patients are cared for.”

In the process of co-researching and co-writing or writing a research paper, students learn academic inquiry, collect and analyze data, solve problems and contribute to discoveries with real-world impact. By becoming part of this process, students become primed to create new knowledge in the future.

Develop skills employers value

Research doesn’t just deepen students’ understanding of their fields. It also teaches them how to think critically, solve problems and work effectively with others — skills they can carry into careers and communities long after graduation, according to Keas.

“Research and creative projects help students connect what they learn in class to issues they care about,” he says. “Both the learning and the relationships with mentors allow them to make more informed decisions about their next steps after college.”

With these experiences in their back pocket, MSU graduates are in demand.

In the Global Employability University Ranking 2025, published by Times Higher Education, MSU was ranked No. 8 among U.S. public universities and No. 31 in the country overall among universities that recruiters at top companies believe best prepare students for the workplace.

In MSU’s Department of Economics at the College of Social Science, Associate Professor Soren Anderson is actively using his research to inform the career readiness of his students.

He studies a range of issues in energy and environmental economics, focusing on the interconnections of global and regional energy markets. As a result, Anderson’s students develop a deep understanding of how energy markets work, learning about emerging technologies like electric vehicles and solar electricity as well as more traditional ones like oil and gasoline pipelines.

“My own research keeps me engaged with the latest methods, evidence and policy questions, which I can bring directly into the classroom,” Anderson says. “I want students to be able to think through complex interconnection between global oil markets and regional electricity markets — a skill they can apply to new technologies, policies and market developments they encounter throughout their careers.”

Michigan’s automotive industry is a massive economic engine for the state and the nation. And, in a world where generative AI becomes more dominant, Anderson’s research prepares Spartans for the future.

In his classes, student teams manage portfolios of electricity generators and make strategic decisions about how to operate them in a competitive market, building skills like analytical thinking, clear writing, teamwork, strategic decision-making and learning from outcomes that are useful in a wide range of careers, not just those in the energy industry, Anderson explains.

They also dive into what’s behind the code that generative AI is increasingly writing. Apart from mastering the specific computer code needed to conduct analyses, “we emphasize thinking carefully about data quality, choosing appropriate statistical methods, visualizing data effectively and interpreting and communicating results,” he says.

That approach reflects the broader value of studying at a research university. At MSU, research doesn’t just create new knowledge — it fuels innovation and catalyzes opportunities for students to learn, contribute and prepare to make a difference over their lifetime.