<p>I managed to get an internship with a computer science professor at a local university last summer. It worked out pretty well.....until the professor and her team stopped replying to my emails. Now they won't even respond to me on gmail chat. :(</p>
<p>Should I try to find another computer science professor to intern with (at the same university)? I didn't actually get to conduct any research with the first one, I was just an assistant. :/</p>
<p>Not sure what you’re asking here… if someone in any situation ignores your advances (of any kind), there’s no moral code or etiquette that forces you to wait indefinitely.</p>
<p>That said, you may want to figure out why exactly that’s the case. I’m assuming you weren’t paid, and I don’t know many people who would turn down free labor. If you weren’t as diligent as you should have been, that’s something you should work on for future internships. I’m not saying that’s the case, but it is a possibility.</p>
<p>This happened to me actually. I had something set up and then the professor stopped replying. But then he sent me an email a month and a half later. By that time I had found someone else, and told them what happened. It turns out they were just taking their time arranging things. I felt bad but if they stop replying then it’s sort of disrespectful to me in saying my time isn’t valuable. So maybe try and look for another one and see how that one works…</p>
<p>It’s not free labor. Taking on an unskilled student (even undergrads) to help with university research, is for the most part, a HUGE burden and investment on the part of the lab that solely benefits the student. Students need training to be of any remote use to a lab. Moreover, it’s extremely unlikely you’d be in a position to be doing ‘research’ instead of just assisting. As in the proverbial beaker cleaning and sweeping floors. on the faculty. If you can’t appreciate that they gave far more than you can give back, or that you simply could never get to do more than ‘assist’ at your level of development…that attitude might be a reason they’ve not bothered to invest more with you. </p>
<p>I speak from the position of mentoring lots of young people in my lab, and also watching with gratitude the very generous gift my kids have gotten from working with faculty in their areas of interest. They know it’s a gift, and are just thankful for any chance they’ve been given to even be a lab, period. </p>
<p>To answer your question, you can do what you want. There is no rule here. But you might ask yourself first why should someone take you on?</p>
<p>As someone who’s worked in a lab, I know it’s a burden on the researcher. From what the OP said though, he didn’t actually do any of the lab or technical work - so really he was just free clerical labor.</p>
<p>Yeah but it takes work to even find work for unskilled volunteers. It really does. I’ve given highschool students something similar…they arent qualified to do more. </p>
<p>And what are you thinking research is? Single-handedly conducting your own experiment? Most studies involve years of work, tons of tasks, and manpower of many people. So even as a faculty member or my PhD students, we might be posting notices, entering data, counting chips…IF we have those tasks and a highschool kid or undergrad willing to do them, great…but if we don’t we do them ourselves. And if we don’t have such tasks, we can’t find work that fits someone with no higher education yet.</p>