<p>So I hear students everywhere saying that they had one or two years of undergraduate research experience when applying to grad schools. However, what confuses me the most is that since grad applications are submitted mid-to-end of senior fall semester, does the research experience of senior year count as well, even though it wouldn't have actually happened at the time of application?</p>
<p>For example, I've been working in research projects since the my sophomore year second semester. Since this junior year fall semester (2014), I've been working in a lab of my choice and plan to work here until I graduate. So when I apply to grad school or mention it to someone else before/during the application time, should I be saying 2.5 years of research experience (since I'll be having a total of 2.5 years of research experience before graduating) or just 1.5 years of research experience (since I would be in my senior fall semester when applying to grad school)? Are people implying 2 years of research experience out of 4 years of college or 2 years of research experience out of 3 (out of 4) years of college until senior year during grad application time?</p>
<p>Also, when I apply to grad school, I will technically only have 3 semesters plus 1 running semester of research experience. Do the grad application reviewers also take into account my senior year of research experience that I will have gathered by the time I graduate and enter their program?</p>
<p>I think you are overthinking this quantitatively. When people post these things, it’s an estimate, and there is no absolute number for how long you should be doing research. If I had to guess, though, when someone says 2 years of research experience and they’re applying senior year, that would probably mean junior and senior year.</p>
<p>I don’t think grad schools will just ask you “How many years of research experience do you have?” Your resume will state when you started, and grad schools can extrapolate. It’s also not just important how long you were involved, but how extensively (for example, 5 hours a week or 20) and what YOU actually did, learned, and accomplished.</p>
<p>where would I have to mention how many hours a week I worked in the lab? In the SOP or the resume or some other part of the application? Also, is it important to mention how many hours a week?</p>
<p>No, it sounds like they are appropriately concerned with how to report this information on an application, since it is probably the most important part of the application.</p>
<p>OP, you should mention it in the application when you report your work. And generally speaking, you would report the semesters/years worked, not time. So instead of writing “Worked in Professor Smith’s lab for 1.5 years,” you would write something like “RA in Smith lab: spring 2011 to present”.</p>
<p>And yes, the amount of hours you worked in the lab does matter. Working in the lab 15 hours a week is different from working in the lab for 5 hours a week, in terms of the amount of stuff you can absorb/learn.</p>
<p>thanks everyone, and thanks juillet, that was helpful.</p>
<p>I have some more questions. In my SOP, would I have to mention what exactly I would want to do if admitted? I mean, I have found couple professors whose work (based on their website) interest me, but my lack of academic preparation in the field in undergrad has left me wondering if I’ll ever be able to know what exactly I would want to specialize in without entering grad school and knowing ALL the available options under the professor.
For example, my involvement in general aerodynamics research has made me realize that I enjoy doing aerodynamics research than any other aspect of aerospace engineering(like controls, structures,etc) and I have found couple of labs in big colleges that do aerodynamics research specifically pertaining to subsonic and supersonic aircraft (than bio-inspired aerodynamics per se). There work seem cool and interesting and I want to join those labs but I don’t know what research-topic/project I would be doing in that lab. So, in my SOP, would I be able to only state that my interests align with the lab and I would therefore want to join rather than saying “this is what I want to do in your lab”? Would that hurt my application? My college has no aerospace program and I am afraid I won’t be able to find exactly what I would want to do without getting into the program/lab. Is this unusual or usual? Should I try to come up with a project to work in every lab that I plan to apply to? How does this work? Any suggestions?</p>
<p>The more specific you can be when discussing your interest in a particular university, the better it is. Of course you should identify the labs whose research interests you. This helps the admissions committee decide if you are a fit for the department. I would not worry about your preparation. It is likely that you will have at least one year of coursework to do before getting involved heavily in research. This is typical for engineering programs.</p>
<p>The important thing is when you write about the research in a particular lab, make sure you read some of their papers. This will help you be more specific and more correct in what you say about the group.</p>
<p>If there are two labs within one university that are closely related, and both of them sound like a good lab to work in (given I don’t yet know what “exactly” I would want to work in grad school on), would it be okay to mention the two labs of interest in the SOP? Or would that be seen as not-narrow-enough-interest or this-kid-doesn’t-know-what-he-wants-to-specialize-in ? Would that hurt my chances?</p>
<p>This depends a lot on the department. In my field, students are usually supported by a mix of departmental/school and research grant funds, so it’s normal for students to specify 2-3 professors they’d be interested in working with and choose after a semester or two of coursework. I personally specified 3 professors whose work interested me and ended up working with a fourth who I hadn’t considered, but whose work is very similar to my interests (and ended up being a fantastic mentor).</p>
<p>In other fields - especially STEM fields - it’s more common to be funded directly by a specific lab, and you’re expected to have a pretty good idea of whose lab you want to work in before you come. My secondary field (psychology) is more like that; you specify a lab you want to work in. Maybe you specify a back-up or a second lab that you’d like to collaborate with, but it’s generally expected that you have one lab in mind that you want to work with.</p>
<p>A lot of colleges don’t have aerospace engineering undergrad (mine didn’t), so I wouldn’t get too worried from that perspective. I had several classmates hop from mechanical undergrad to aerospace grad. You might have to take a deficiency course or two your first year, but it’s pretty common to switch fields in graduate school.</p>