Last Saturday, students most likely just wanted to sleep in, unwind and escape the pressures of the academic week. That wasn’t the case for Jesus Lopez, an English major who joined more than 200 of his fellow students for the sixth annual California State University Honors Consortium Student Conference hosted at Sacramento State.

The conference showcased student research and presentations on historical and current issues.

“It is not a competition,” said Sac State’s Honors Program director Roberto Pomo. “I want to be clear about that – it is not a competition, but rather an opportunity for us to really share in the research and ideas?”

Lopez presented his research on the history of the petroleum industry and how it emerged from the automotive industry in the early 20th century. Students came from all over the state to put their original work on display inside the University Union, including oral presentations on such subjects as science, engineering, medicine, and the arts and humanities, according to the press release from Sac State’s Public Affairs Office.

The project included how entrepreneurial and scientific innovation, specifically the invention of the mass-produced Model T in 1908 by Ford Motors and the first “oil gushers” in the southwestern U.S., simultaneously developed beside each other to create the oil industry and increase the use of reserves. His research hypothesized an impending petroleum industry downfall supported by the peak oil theory, which says that oil reserves will now only decrease. Lopez said this has been happening since the 1970s and that there are projections as recent as 2005 saying that it has happened again on a worldwide scale.

Lopez said that he is involved with the Honors Program to improve his research and analytical skills so that he can one day write for a newspaper. This is his third year attending the conference. In prior years, he gave speeches about financial aid and social boundaries in Rwanda.

All Honors Program members are eligible to apply to deliver their papers each year. Students submit their research to directors of various academic programs who then evaluate the submissions. Pomo said most papers are chosen because the quality of work is high. No awards are presented; the students just get a chance to shine in front of his or her peers for several minutes.

Pomo said every Honors Program has a “capstone program,” which is a student’s collection of research.

“It could be a whole semester, it could be an entire year, but it’s usually over a couple of years and so most of the research that is shared is senior thesis level.”

Pomo said because the work is all done by undergraduates, that makes their research particularly compelling.

“It’s advanced upper-division-level work and in some cases graduate-level work, depending on the field? many of them will go on to graduate schools,” he said.

Despite his familiarity with the process, Lopez said he still gets nervous. He said introducing his research to his peers was “a little bit nerve-wracking,” and that he sometimes worries that his work doesn’t match up.

Pomo said the students in the program are the ones who make the conference happen.

“Each one of them has had a specific area of responsibility, and so the planning process has been outstanding just because our students made it happen. This is really a student-driven program.”

Julia Baum can be reached at [email protected].