“How many 21-year-olds can say they are published authors?” says Kate Valentine, ERC ’08. There is stiff competition to get in, but the Mexican Migration Field Research and Training Program (MMFRP) allows 25 students to accomplish that in three quarters, and graduated its 100th student this year.
Across the Border
“My idea was for students to be able to share in the hands-on fieldwork that I have been doing for 40 years,” says political science professor and MMFRP program director Wayne Cornelius. Cornelius is the director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies and a leading scholar on Mexican immigration.
Applying strategies they learned from Cornelius and political science professor David Fitzgerald, students developed survey materials and traveled to a Mexican community with high migration activity. In December, they spent two weeks interviewing 750 people and on their return, they analyzed the results and compiled them into co-authored chapters in the book Four Generations of Norteños (check it out at rienner.com).
“I can say with confidence that this program was the defining experience
of my four years at UCSD,” says Jennifer Wittlinger, ERC ’06. “As for our time in the field, I doubt that I have ever grown so much in two short weeks, both academically and personally. As Tunkaseños continually invited me into their homes, I gained a new understanding of the push and pull factors in migration.”
While the primary goal is to train undergraduate social scientists to do field research, the experience drives students to be competitive in graduate admissions and in their post-graduate careers. As of 2007, over 80 percent have been minority students and 32 are pursuing graduate degrees, 18 have joined non-governmental organizations, five have won prestigious fellowships and six are at law firms or
federal government agencies.
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