<p>So why don't you investigate your own ideas? Is it the lack of experience? What do you mean by "just not how academic science works for anyone"? Also, if you have your own ideas, can you get a grant? In addition, are students the ones who are getting the grant money (grad or possibly undergrad)? Lastly, if you don't mind my asking, what do you do in your research?</p>
<p>Well, in academic science, labs are run by a single professor, who basically employs everyone in the lab and therefore gets to have a say in the research questions which are being investigated. Grant money from the federal government generally goes to the professor. He who has the gold makes the rules, as it were.</p>
<p>I don't mean to imply that there's no freedom to explore your own ideas, but you're somewhat constrained by the type of research problems your lab is investigating in the first place. </p>
<p>In my research, I am investigating the relationship between two proteins which are found in neurons. One of the proteins, X, is the binding partner of a protein called Y which is the binding partner of a protein called Z that the professor who runs my lab discovered. (Z --> Y --> X) The lab I am in studies protein-protein interactions in the neuron, particularly those which can be related to Z, as that's my professor's baby. I'm characterizing the interaction using a variety of cell biology techniques, including overexpressing my proteins in neurons and imaging the neurons on a confocal microscope.</p>
<p>I work by myself on a day-to-day basis, although I work directly under a postdoc, who helps me design and interpret experiments and answers questions for me when I get stuck. I'm also responsible for keeping up with the scientific literature regarding my project, and reporting results to my professor.</p>
<p>So while the project is largely "mine", it seems silly to me to say I'm investigating my own ideas, because no one in my lab works entirely independently -- we're all obliged to report our results to our professor and to take his suggestions seriously, since he is the one signing our paychecks.</p>
<p>That makes sense. So does a major portion of your tuition come from the lab research? </p>
<p>Also, what do you mean by us being "constrained by the type of research problems your lab is investigating in the first place"? What if, for example, I'm interested in testing a theory of mine on learning. MIT surely has the facilities to allow me to do so, but do they incentivise me to investigate my idea? After months of research for example, suppose I need to use an fMRI machine to test some of my hypotheses? Would some sort of grant or aid allow me to do so, funded? Aside from federal funding, is there any university-provided funding?</p>
<p>Haha, I don't make that much! I mean, I suppose it could, if I fed my paychecks back into my MIT education, but in my family, we've worked it out so that my dad pays my tuition and I keep my UROP paychecks for personal expenses like food, books, and entertainment.</p>
<p>So in your case, I would suggest joining a lab that's investigating those sorts of problems. MIT doesn't own the fMRI machine, that's generally owned by the individual lab or by a group of labs, so you'd get access by doing research in a particular lab.</p>
<p>I'm not aware of any funding that's available for students to pursue projects individually; all the funding of which I'm aware is distributed through a student's affiliation with a lab (UROP funding, for instance, requires that a student be associated with an approved UROP supervisor). Science in general is highly collaborative, and in the fields with which I'm familiar, it would be very unusual for anyone, whether an undergrad, grad student, or postdoc, to pursue a research question without the guidance of a faculty member. After all, it's not normal to see a paper authored only by one person...</p>