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Spreading their
wings
 |
| Purdue Agriculture alumni Jocelyn
Wong and Thomas Chang invented soy-based crayons as students,
winning first place in a competition for innovative soybean
use sponsored by Purdue and the Indiana Soybean Development
Council. |
Jocelyn Wong '96, an agricultural and biological
engineering major, is a quintessential example. Wong was
one of three undergraduate students who in 1994 invented
soybean crayons, one of the most popular and publicized undergraduate
accomplishments in recent Purdue history. Dixon Ticonderoga
licensed the technology from the students and Purdue and
marketed the crayons under its Prang brand.
"I didn't intend to be an engineer.
So when I came into the course, the whole process was very
difficult," Wong says. "I felt like I was competing
against people who really wanted to be engineers and were
great at it. But, for me, the research really enhanced my
experience at Purdue. I felt the research was something for
me; it was mine. It had nothing to do with the other students
and nothing to do with the academia part of it."
Wong currently works at Proctor and Gamble.
She moved from her engineering position there a few years
ago and now works in brand management and marketing. She
attributes her success to undergraduate research.
"The research really led me down this
path. The research that we did essentially was a business
question: 'What can you do with soybeans and how do you bring
it to market?' What I do now is what I learned from the research,
which is to bring products to market and answer those kinds
of business questions, using analytical problem-solving," Wong
says.
Klaus
Herrmann, professor of biochemistry,
says that working on a research project produces quick
changes in his young charges. "After you get them
in the lab and they know they can be useful, they see their
studies in a different light," Herrmann says. "I
always tell students, 'You have to get your fingers wet.
It's the only way to really learn.'"
Spreading their
wings
|
