Collaborative Research Project

Abstract
Research Questions
Annotated Bibliography 

Prologue

The following documentary captures responses to the primary research question, "Why do students at Rowan gain weight as freshmen?"  Amy Schuster and Julianne Kovary were able to capture video responses from Rowan students chosen at random, who were given no time to prepare. Additionally, I created the following facebook status, "‎Amy Schuster, Julianne Kovary and I are doing a research project for one of our classes… you tell us… WHY DO STUDENTS GAIN WEIGHT THEIR FRESHMAN YEAR? DON'T HOLD BACK!…Thanks for your help!", which yielded several written responses that have been incorporated into our documentary.  Viewers will also see video footage of the various eateries, both on and off campus, that Rowan students have to choose from.  Short segments from our initialOral History Interviews have also been included in the documentary to offer the perspective of two upperclassmen at Rowan; these upperclassmen have had personal experiences with the various factors mentioned in the documentary.  Our intended audience for the piece is college students, specifically freshmen, at Rowan University.

Food U. - A Documentary

Afterword 

In conducting both the Oral History and Collaborative Research assignments, we were able to expand our knowledge of a familiar topic. Though our initial goal was to research general college weight gain, our research process led us in a more specific direction.  We first narrowed our research to Rowan University before narrowing it even further to freshmen students.  When deliberating over our final project after completing the Oral History assignment, we realized that our research all seemed to point in the same direction.  Most of our findings unveiled freshman year as a significant factor in college weight gain.  We therefore focused on the new primary research question, "Why do students at Rowan gain weight freshman year?".  This question fit our audience well and allowed for genuine responses from real Rowan students.  As Rowan students ourselves, we had a lot of fun with this project.  It was cool to hear the opinions of our peers and to learn about a topic that applies to us directly.