What’s it like working as an undergraduate
research assistant for OSCAR? Everyone thinks that working while at college is
extremely hard and impossible since it comes with the responsibilities of doing
my job while balancing homeworks and projects. However, on the contrary, I was
able to enjoy working all while keeping my GPA above 3.85. I was able to meet a
lot of great people, and was exposed to their methods of research. I created
new connections, made new friends, and helped me establish my own financial
support.
I work for Game Engagement, Analysis and
Research (or GEAR), a student organization that focuses on studying the
humanities aspect of video games, tabletop games and the online gaming
community. Most of the time I help promote events through social media sites in
addition to maintaining a blog to keep track of the group’s research projects
and events. Other times, I help with creating documents to make GEAR an
official student organization in Mason. Right now, I’m helping with a research
on tabletop games. This project, by Richard Bennett, sees how often violence is
used by players as a solution to achieve the goal of a given situation. What I
found out is that new players more often than not use violence, while
experienced tabletop gamers will often use violence as a last resort. Although
there are many ways to go through with the puzzle, players usually go with
violence despite being one of the harder actions to complete. I found out that
this was the case because the section about combat takes up the most on the
official rules of the tabletop game; more exposure to combat rules means
violence will be used more often.
Working with them this semester, I’ve learned
that there are many topics to choose from, despite the limited category I could
choose from. Video games present humanities in an entertaining and interactive
way. I actually plan on doing a mini-research of my own, and will further
develop that depending on whether I want to continue with that. Working under
OSCAR is fun, and in the long run, can help you establish a road to a
financially sound future.
