Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

Kim Nguyen finds that she's better able to understand some policies discussed in her law classroom because of her work with Dr. Barr.

The most valuable knowledge that Kim Nguyen gained from working in the Georgetown Early Learning Project lab helps her now as an international and intellectual property law student at American University.

“Working at the lab improved my research and analytical writing skills. One of the most important skills in law school, which is reiterated ad nauseum, is the ability to research and write concisely and effectively,” explains Nguyen. “My most valuable experience in the research and writing aspect of my lab work was learning how to edit. I learned to be concise, yet thorough, and it has helped me a great deal in writing memos and briefs at law school.”

What initially attracted Nguyen to the Early Learning Project was not improving her writing skills, but the opportunity to do truly hands-on research.

“I was eager to join the lab because it was one of the few where I could actually see and interact with the participants,” she says. “I was not just sitting at a desk entering data for hours every day. Professor Barr encourages students to go on ‘baby visits,’ so that we can see where all the data we work with is coming from, thus helping us to gain a better understanding of the numbers and words that are in front of us on the computers. It was exciting to see how toddlers interacted with their caregivers.”

While at Georgetown, Nguyen worked in the lab for two years and spent one summer as a GUROP fellow. She participated in two major research projects. The first involved studying the role of ethnicity and ethnic identity on the offset of infantile amnesia, which is the name for the common phenomenon of children not being able to remember events occurring earlier in their lives (the average of first memory is 3 or 4 years). The second study was a longitudinal study focusing on media influences on subsequent school readiness for toddlers. This was an ongoing study in which the researchers followed up with 9-, 12-, and 15-month-old children once they turned 4 years of age and were prepared to enter formal schooling.

“Studying ethnicity and cultural differences has always been a passion of mine, and working on the infantile amnesia study was fascinating,” she says. “I currently continue my studies in cultural differences through my concentration on international law, where I am attempting to understand the theory behind policy differences between the U.S. and other countries. The longitudinal study, which involves various forms of media, has also proved to be helpful in my intellectual property law class, where I have real-life references to apply to my considerations of patents and trademarks.”

Nguyen says her research with the Early Learning Project has impacted the direction she hopes to take her law career. She currently mentors a teenager at the Oak Hill Youth Detention Center, where she says her understanding of contextual influences that affected him in his early childhood development allows her to recognize motives for his actions. She intends to parlay this into work that will help deter future criminal behavior. She hopes to work in both the public and private spheres of law, serving government agencies in family and child support divisions as well as working as an associate specializing in international and intellectual property law for a private firm.

“My experience at the lab helped me to realize my passion for studying how children develop and what influences are important to their development,” Nguyen says. “Seeing how important communication and interaction are to a child’s development made me want to help those who were not as fortunate to experience the kind of nurturing that is crucial for children in their earlier years.”

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