Изследователска дейност на бакалавърско ниво: пет години опит в Нов български университет
Research at the Undergraduate Level: Five Years of Experience in NBU

Summary/Abstract: In the past five years the New Bulgarian University has developed an innovative bachelor honors program for outstanding students. The program is based on the idea of education that promotes independent thinking and helps individuals to become critical citizens in a global information society and creative problem solvers. It has been built upon the positive experience and good practices in research-based education of the best universities in the world and also of the experience of the Central and East European Center for Cognitive Science at the MS and Ph.D. levels. The main goal of the program is to prepare highly qualified, creative and independent specialists on the basis of participation in research and applied projects under the supervision of distinguished scientists. The students are supposed to acquire a broad multidisciplinary background, deep knowledge in the field of specialization, skills in critical analysis of scientific literature and generation of scientific texts. These goals and objectives are achieved by participation in seminars and conferences, a tutoring system, individual and group directed studies and research projects. The courses in the program strongly rely on learning by doing, learning by teaching others, learning to learn, and learning in groups. Students of the program have authored more than 15 papers and have developed several interdisciplinary projects. All these achievements show that the program has been very successful. The reasons for this can be found in the new dynamics of the studies in the New Bulgarian University, which motivates good students to take the responsibility of their own studies and not to rely on fixed programs. The program could not have achieved its results without the active participation of the professors involved coming from various disciplines like psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, etc. The small community of researchers and students formed around the Undergraduate research program for outstanding students showed that it can be a viable and efficient way of education and is worth of further development.

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