By Aaron Chan, Varsity Staff

Students participating in the Research Opportunities Program at U of T had the chance to display their work at a fair this week. Over 40 students took the opportunity to show the progress of their projects to other students and faculty supervisors at the event Monday afternoon at Hart House.

The Research Opportunities Program allows second year undergraduatesto conduct research projects with professors for course credits. This year, 160 students worked on 85 different projects, in fields rangingfrom biochemistry to religion. Sabine Polano did a project titled "Pulsating Red Giants" with John Percy of the astronomy department. She signed up for the program tofind out what research is like and found she had a good time doing the project.

"You learn how much time research actually takes it's a long-term commitment." According to Ken Bartlett, co-ordinator of faculty programs, the Research Opportunities Program was designed to give U of T students something unique to Canada.

"We keep talking about U of T being a research-intensive university, [and] we're trying to show there's value-added to attending a research intensive university," he said. "Students feel this is an experience they don't get anywhere else."

Joseph Bishay, who built a web-site to catalogue the information of Canadian film-maker Nell Shipman, agrees the course is unlike any other he has taken. "It's different from memorizing and regurgitating material for a test, like other courses."