The PoliSci Pod: DURP and Undergraduate Research
In this episode of the PoliSci Pod, Peer Advisors Aisha and Levi are joined by Ben, an undergraduate student majoring in political science, to discuss his experience in the Distinguished Undergraduate Research Program (DURP) and the value of undergraduate research.
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Episode Transcript
Aisha: Hi everyone! Welcome to the PoliSci Pod, the department political science podcast, hosted by your peer advisors. This week, we'll be discussing the DURP: the Distinguished Undergraduate Research Program, which is a department-facilitated research program that is offered every fall and spring only for political science majors. My name is Aisha Hersi and I'm one of the peer advisors and a senior studying political science. I did the DURP last spring with Professor Tricia Olsen and really enjoyed my experience.
Levi: My name is Levi Wilson, I'm a sophomore here at the U studying political science and sociology of law. I am the other peer advisor in the political science department and I am set up to do the DURP with Tim Johnson next semester, and I'm very excited to be part of the program. Here today to discuss his experience with the DURP is Ben. Ben, if you could tell us just a little bit about yourself, your interests, your time in college, and your major.
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. So I came into college not really knowing what I wanted to do. Um, it kind of was—I knew that my academic interests were certain, like, definitely in climate change. Um, it's definitely what I cared about the most. I've kind of had, like, climate anxiety my entire life, so something that I cared a lot about. Um, and so the natural progression for me felt like moving into environmental science and so that's where I started. Um, I did a full year of—a full year and a half, actually, of environmental science, um, before deciding to actually add on my political science degree. So it was not something that I started in, um, it was something that I added on. Um, actually, from the recommendation of a friend, after looking into the minor, um, recommended that I just do the full degree because it would just open more opportunities. Um, and political science is amazing. I love my degree in political science. I love the freedom that it has with the classes that you can take. Um, I love the freedom that it gives you with getting credits outside of just regular courses, like the DURP, um, on top of also internship experiences. And so, overall, like, politics has slowly become much more of, like, an academic interest for me, um, and it's something that I've had a lot of love for and yeah.
Levi: That's really great, thank you. I think it's especially interesting that you get to have the experience of both kind of, like, being in two different colleges, as well, on campus. Um, thinking more specifically about the DURP. One, well, who did you do the DURP with, and did you have, like, prior contact with that professor? Was that someone you had in mind when you applied?
Ben: So my DURP advisor was Professor Tanisha Fazal. I just want to give her a shout-out because she's awesome. Um, I took her Global Politics of Climate Change course and so that was kind of what prompted my interest. And it was such a great class because it was such a nice intersectionality for me of, like, a political science course that's focused on climate change, so it has been, by far, my favorite class that I've taken in college, um, and it was super interesting. You do an awesome, like, um, I'm forgetting the word, but it's, like—a simulation, that's the word, yeah. And so, it's one of those courses with a simulation, which is super fun, um, it's really engaging, it's a really engaging class, and so I love the class. The topic was super interesting, um, and on top of that, her teaching assistant was doing her dissertation in what I was interested in, which is, um, cities that engage in transnational networks. And so, kind of what happened is the DURP kind of fell into my lap. It wasn't a situation where I kind of looked out for it, um, it kind of started with Professor Fazal actually emailing me, asking me to TA her Global Politics of Climate Change course. And so, I kind of, at that time, I was, like, applying to some internships and it just kind of didn't work out in my schedule. And so that's when she kind of offered the DURP. She was like, well, you know, if you can't TA, how do you thought about maybe, like, wanting to do some research? Like, there's this Distinguished Undergraduate Research Program. I'd never heard of it. Um, and so I looked into it and I thought, oh, my gosh, like, this is an awesome experience, I might as well do it. It's a great way to get political science credits without having to take a course, um, which I love because it's like getting real-world, like, life experiences and gaining skills that you need if you want to do research in your career. Um, and it was just such a great opportunity. And so that's why last spring, like, that's why I did it with her, and yeah.
Aisha: That's really great to hear and it's really great that you took a course with Professor Fazal before you applied. Um, it's always wonderful for students to be familiar with the professor's research area before they do it. Regarding the research though, could you tell us a little bit about your research question and kind of how you came to that topic?
Ben: So I knew at the time that I got into doing a second degree in political science, I also applied to the Honors Program, and I—when I got accepted into the Honors Program, I knew that I would be writing a thesis. Now, obviously a thesis—there's three different levels, but I knew that I wanted to do a summa level thesis, which requires independent research. And so this was such a great opportunity for me because it allowed me to basically gain skills and do research in what I was interested in, which was then immediately transferable into my thesis. So the question that I'm looking at is: Under what conditions do cities engage in transnational climate networks? Um and just to speak a little bit on that, of what that actually is. Essentially, cities have the ability to be independent from the government. It's a concept we might know called federalism, which is decentralization of power. And so the sovereignty that cities have allows them to engage in transnational networks to get resources and funding to apply city-level climate action, whether that be in, like, investing in cleaner infrastructure, increasing park space, you know, the list goes on. Um, so yeah, that was kind of how that question came about, and, I'm sorry, what was the second part of the question?
Aisha: Yeah, kind of like, what made you choose this particular question, but I feel like you kind of already—
Ben: Yeah, so just to, yup, exactly, just to kind of touch on that again, that was, that really came from that course that I took with Professor Fazal and then on top of that, the fact that I, um, the teaching assistant was doing her dissertation in that topic, which I found to be really interesting, so...
Aisha: Yeah, regarding the methodology that you use in this research and kind of the approach that you use—could you speak a little bit to that?
Ben: The methodology and kind of...it almost was a situation where I, like, thought about first about what were the possible answers to the question. So coming up with a couple hypotheses and thinking about, okay, what might cause a city to engage in a transnational network? And from there, then it's kind of deciding, okay, what is the best research method to answer that said hypothesis? One of my possible hypotheses is city climate readiness, so the degree that a city is, like, vulnerable to the changes that are going to come with climate change. And so, for that, you know, that's a very quantitative method of looking at this hypothesis because it's not like you're really gonna talk to someone and like, oh, how, like, climate-ready are you guys, right? So it was kind of a situation where that was, like, it was kind of picking the best methodology to answer the hypothesis.
So another one of mine was focused on kind of this city initiative and, like, what initiative individuals were taking. And so that one was a much more qualitative approach, so. The methodology, the main, like, two methodologies that I use to kind of answer my initial hypotheses were a quantitative approach: gathering independent data and trying to kind of come up with city indicators to calculate a city climate readiness score. And then a very qualitative approach where I was conducting interviews and talking with people about, hey, like, what- what was the reasoning for engaging in this transnational network? What was the, you know, what was the driving force? Was it that you guys needed the resources that they provided? Were they securing funding for your city? Like, what was the different reason that caused you to join this network. And so that was kind of the main approach, was, like, a very quantitative, like, data-heavy approach and then, like, a qualitative, interviewing-focused approach, so.
Levi: And, like, when you were doing the DURP, specifically, did you feel like there were any challenges or, like, surprises that you experienced both, like, in the quantitative and the qualitative measures? Just because they can be so different even thought it's, like, they serve, like, kind of similar purs- purposes where you're trying to reach that answer. Like, did you feel like there was anything specific that was difficult about it?
Ben: Definitely. So I'll start kind of with the qualitative side of things. So qualitatively, securing interviews is always hard. I mean, that requires an abundance of follow-ups. I mean, think of it like a job interview. You gotta email the person 40 times if you want a response, right? So, um, I recently conducted an interview where it was basically just phone tag and email tag back and forth, back and forth, trying to get the person to work. And, eventually, you will get it. But I don't think I realized how much time and effort and, like, dedication I would have to spend to securing an interview because, maybe this is naive of me to say, but, like, people are obviously busy and so, you know, they can't just always set aside time to talk about city- city networks on a transnational level.
Um, quantitatively, the challenges were a little bit different. That was a struggle of securing data, right? Because data is—there is a lot of data in this world. However, data is very hard to work with, it's very hard to understand, and so a lot of it is, like, first you gotta find the data, then you have to find what the data even means, then you have to sort the data to make it event work for what you're trying to accomplish. And so it was a situation where basically it was like every time you thought, like, oh, I just have to do this, there was about 16 more steps on top of what you thought you were just gonna have to do to get what you needed.
Levi: Yeah.
Ben: Um, and so, I would say, yeah, like, the biggest challenge was, again, just certainly me poorly managing my expectation of how long certain things would take.
Levi: I mean, did you guys use, like, R? Did you use Stata? Like, what did you use?
Ben: Yeah, so R has been the predominant coding platform that I've used to sort a lot of my data. I'm currently in Professor Sumner's Quantitative Analysis course. Shout-out Professor Sumner—she's awesome. Um, and so, she's been helping me, as well as her TA, like, helping me use R to kind of sort the data, um, and then what's ultimately going to allow me to run a regression in R. But yes, R was, like, the main, um, sort of platform that I use to work with the quantitative data.
Levi: Okay. And, like, thinking about, like, when you were working with the DURP and you were doing, um, that kind of, like, quantitative portion with Fazal, how do you feel like she helped, like, guide you through some of those difficult moments or even just act, like, interacting with data in the first place?
Ben: Yeah, so, first of all, her knowledge about the data is amazing. I mean, she's like, okay, well, have you looked here? Have you looked here? Have you looked here? And so, there was always—she was always able to help me find, like a workaround for data that I either couldn't find or she would just have a resource of where to go to find the data. Um, obviously she isn't familiar with every single thing about, like, working with quantitative data, but she was always very knowledgeable in, like, telling me where to go and what resources to find.
Aisha: Yeah, I mean, could you speak a little to, kind of, like, the output of your research and the result, what it informed?
Ben: Yeah, so, kind of, it's very initial because, of course, it's kind of been a long-term project of starting with the DURP that has then kind of led into my honors thesis. But it's sort of kind of brought some interesting initial results, which is—and I forgot to mention this earlier—which the focus of the two, um, of the research was mostly on Minnesota and Wisconsin, and this was just for the purposes of kind of, um, narrowing the research scope and not having it be, like, on a national scale because that just would have been too much work. Um, that would have been more of like a dissertation—that is not like a thesis. So my focus is really in states—in Minnesota and Wisconsin. And so, when you look at these two states, they're actually kind of similar geographically. There are some notable differences—politically they're a little bit different. You know, Wisconsin is much more battleground, while Minnesota tends to be relatively consistently blue, um, and so these kind of just felt like a good comparison for the two. And, um—from there, we just kind of—were able to figure out that, okay, well, wow Minnesota, we have all these cities that are big, like Minneapolis and St. Paul, Duluth, Rochester, and that's what we would kind of expect. But then why in Wisconsin all of a sudden there's all these cities that are teeny tiny in deep red parts of the state that are interested in climate change. So it was just like a really interesting, like, duality of, okay, you have Minnesota and then you have Wisconsin, which they don't look anything alike in terms of their city climate membership. So that was, like, the first kind of result that we found.
And a bit part of that we ended up finding out was because Minnesota has just done a much greater job outputting, like, a state-ready climate change plan, and so the cities in Minnesota were a lot more kind of—it was a lot more to be expected, but what was kind of the mystery was, like, okay, what about Wisconsin? Why—what is going on there? And the result was, okay, they just don't have as many resources, there's not as much funding coming from the state and so this kind of was, like, what started to shape my results in the DURP, from the research that I did in the DURP.
Aisha: Yeah, that's a great comparative perspective that you got there and, I mean, Minnesota and Wisconsin are very local to so many students on campus.
Ben: Exactly.
Aisha: It's really great, yeah. You know, you kind of touched on this with how you talked about the DURP reflecting your thesis, but how would you say the DURP maybe even gave you skills you didn't have prior or kind of influenced your overall undergraduate goals and what you aim to do post-grad?
Ben: So the DURP, like, as I've belabored the point many times, is, like—it was so helpful in terms of gaining the skills to do research for my thesis, right? I would not have been able to do the things that I'm doing now without doing the DURP prior, so—I would almost recommend that any student who is doing a thesis do the DURP. Even if you don't end up doing what I did, where your topic is immediately transferable into your thesis, you will gain so many, like, skills about research that you will need if you want to write a summa level thesis for honors. And so, some of the skills that I gained, like, I've slightly touched on using R, um, figuring out how to use, like, go through the IRB process, which is a big part of it, as well, because if you're doing research, you need to do—go, like, clear through the IRB process. So that, and having that approval coming into writing my thesis was already very helpful. And so, also, just reaching out to stakeholders, reaching out to different people, finding what data you need, being able to sort through data. I mean, like, the list of experiences and skills that I've gained through the DURP is very long, and it was all really, really helpful as I've said to the thesis. Um, so yeah.
Aisha: It's really great to hear, yeah. Um, so, you know, many students were notified, including Levi, himself, that they'll be doing the DURP next spring, and so, if you could give any advice to those students, or students just considering applying, what would it be?
Ben: Definitely don't be scared to apply. Um, I think you should—and also don't be scared to reach out to a professor that you might be interested in doing it with. Many professors are excited about the idea of a DURP. Oftentimes, it's actually mutual benefit because professors will actually use the research that you do and credit you for that research. That's cool, right? Because you're doing research for a professor that might publish you research. Um, so I think that's really cool on a, like, broader scale. Um, professors want to work with you, even if they say no, don't be offended. Maybe they just have other things going on, maybe they're taking a sabbatical. So definitely don't be hesitant to reach out. Um, if you're still kind of having some doubts, I would definitely sit down with the professor and talk about the idea of doing a DURP, being like, okay, here are my concerns, voice your concerns to this professor, and I'm sure that they'll be able to work something out with you.
Um, another thing, too, is don't be scared to kind of push back on a topic that doesn't sound interesting to you. Fazal and I did not immediately, like, just jump to one project, right? We talked about some ideas, some of the things that she suggested sounded interesting, some of them didn't, and so that's where, kind of, another big piece of advice is—that I would give is do not focus on a topic that you're not interested in. If not, you will not enjoy the DURP. If you're doing research about something you're not interested in, it's like doing a research paper that you don't care about. It's just not enjoyable, it's not interesting, it's not—yeah, it's not engaging to you at all.
And I would say, like, the last kind of tip that I would give is just, if you're at all, like, interested in a career that is going to focus on research, or is going to focus on—or if you're planning on doing, you know, post-secondary schooling, you're thinking about writing a PhD, you're thinking about writing a dissertation in the future, I think the DURP is just a great place to start. It's very low stakes, right? I mean, you're not gonna get, like, in trouble if one week you kind of don't do enough for your professor. So, it's low stakes, it's a great opportunity to figure out and do research that you're actually interested and passionate about, unlike what I just said, where it's like you're doing a research paper for a topic you don't care about. So, it's just an amazing experience overall to just kind of start your—start your journey on learning how to do research.
And research, as I've learned through the DURP, is so much more than just reading academic sources, right? It's, like I've talked about, figuring out what data you need and talking to new people and talking to interesting people. I've had the pleasure of, like, interviewing the former mayor of Duluth, which was sick, like, having an interview with a former mayor is awesome, and she was super nice, and yeah. So it just opens up really new experiences that are cool and, you know, you might not even get to do them if you just do your entire political science degree only taking courses, so.
Levi: Well, thank you so much, Ben. You've been an incredible guest.
Ben: Thank you.
Levi: Your insight has been extremely helpful, I think, for a variety of students and even other faculty who want to do the DURP. Um, but really, thank you so much for joining.
Aisha: Yeah, thank you so much, Ben. I mean, echoing what Levi said, this is going to be really helpful, especially as many students are navigating the DURP application process for next semester. Um, but yeah, thanks so much for joining us today.
Ben: Thank you so much.
Levi: If our conversation with Ben has piqued your interest in the DURP, applications for spring 2026 are currently closed, but they will reopen in spring for fall 2026. Students can find more information about DURP eligibility requirements on the U of MN political science website under the undergraduate research tab. I'm your host, Levi.
Aisha: And I'm your host, Aisha.
Levi: Thank you for listening to the PoliSci Pod!
