Undergraduate research experience: A case study at ECE department of Amrita University

It is a unique experience for the students and the teachers during the undergraduate research. The students benefit a lot as they are introduced to the analysis, critical thinking and technical aspects of the given research problem. Also this serves as one of the great ways of effective learning. For a teacher, it is a great satisfaction as this is one of the tools of effective teaching. The research work presented here discusses about the undergraduate research experience in the Electronics and Communication department of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (Amrita) University. Undergraduate students are introduced into the research stream even during their second year. Their research work, at the end of final year is considered to be equivalent to, or greater than that of Graduate students´ research work. Care is given to make sure that the academics of the student are not affected because of the involvement in research work. The case study presented here includes the undergraduate students´ research work who graduated in the years 2010. A total number of twenty four research papers got published from the year 2008 to 2010 at various international conferences. One journal paper and one book chapter were also published. Students got opportunity to travel outside the country to present their research work and meet expert researchers and discuss their work. Eight of these students are doing their graduate programs in various US universities.