More than 350 students from across the nation gathered at UC Berkeley this weekend to present their original research as part of a program that prepares undergraduates for future academic careers.

Undergraduates from 49 universities attended the four-day long California McNair Scholars Symposium, a national event that provides a platform for McNair scholars to present research from all disciplines.

Harold Campbell, director of the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Program at UC Berkeley, said that the principal goal of the program is to assist low-income, first-generation and underrepresented students to get into competitive doctoral education.

"We hope by putting them into Ph.D programs (we will) bring in students as faculty that represent the emerging new student bodies," Campbell said.

UC Berkeley senior Filiberto Chavez, one of the McNair scholars presenting at the symposium, focused his research on the Evangelican conquest of Mexico.

"I do plan on taking this after (college) in a different direction or seeing what types of changes occurred in the later half of the 16th century," said Chavez, who is double majoring in history and Chicano studies.

Campbell said another goal of the McNair program is to turn the scholars into future professors.

"In seven or eight years I want to see Dr. Chavez sitting next to me," Campbell said. "And in about ten years, we want to read about Dr. Chavez being an expert in history; we want to read his books in the classrooms."