<p>do professors expect someone to have prior knowledge to do a research project with them?</p>
<p>I would think it depends on the level of research you're doing... surely at least a basic level is expected.</p>
<p>does anyone know how you get started with research? Do you have to have an idea of first? or do you just contact a local university professor and tell them you're interested in doing a research project? Thank you for any help!</p>
<p>help please! GREATLY appreciated!!</p>
<p>They're going to give you a graduate-school textbook and make you get familiarized before you start doing any work. Learning techniques is easy enough but you're going to have to do a lot of reading. Not to mention your new homepage will be Pubmed lol.</p>
<p>I see so you don't really need to have prior knowlede, but you gotta show you can work your *** off?</p>
<p>do i just email a professor and they would reply yes or no? or is there an interview process also?</p>
<p>Email a bunch of professors. When seeking an internship, I emailed about fifteen professors and exactly one accepted me. He's amazing and it's working out really well. :]</p>
<p>Send an email including a resume and a description of what type of experience you're seeking. Be prepared for an interview -- some may want to conduct one.</p>
<p>Also, in the email, I'd advise writing something demonstrating that you know what the professor is doing. In mine, I added a few sentences about why each professor's research interested me.</p>
<p>what would ur resume contain? gpa, classes, extracirriculars?
anyone else with research experince that could also help explain is greatly appreciated! thanks poseur</p>
<p>Yeah, I had never had a job, so my resume was just my GPA, SATs (lawl), relevant coursework, volunteering experience, and extracurriculars (emphasizing the science-related ones.) If you've had a job, you should include that, in order to show that you're responsible and what not.</p>
<p>Gotcha, another question...can you research things other than science also?</p>
<p>Yeah, definitely. I just meant, in my case, that I emphasized the stuff that was relevant to the type of internship I was seeking. Sorry I made that kind of unclear.</p>
<p>"Research" can take many shapes and forms. (:</p>
<p>bump bump bump</p>
<p>bump bump bump</p>
<p>yeah, u can research in stuff other than science. u can do politics, humantiies, etc. go to this site *************. com (sp?) for a greeeatt advice on emailing professors and things like that. seriously, this site had helped me to email professors and snag a paid internship with a MIT professor for the past summer.</p>
<p>awesome thanks</p>
<p>wildchartermage- question...did you need any previous knowledge about your topic? or was it just like if you work hard you can come?</p>
<p>thanks for your help</p>
<p>I offer these comments as a university professor.</p>
<p>Many undergraduate students apply to work in my lab each year. Most of the inquiries are poorly written and reveal that the student is merely doing a mass email to all professors at their university. I routinely ignore these emails and do not respond to them (there are simply too many of these types!).</p>
<p>By contrast, each year I receive a much smaller number of inquiries from students who have read either my webpage or some of my research articles. These students are usually not knowledgeable about my field, but they can communicate why they wish to specifically explore research in my lab. So to answer your question concerning whether students need "prior knowledge" or do they need to approach my lab with a research project: the answer to both is no. </p>
<p>However, they do need to understand and be able to explain why they wish to work in my lab and they need to explain why they wish to explore research. The successful candidates usually end their email inquiry by asking to make an appointment to meet with me and discuss internship possibilities. If students have relevant coursework, honors or high GPA that is useful information that can help elevate their email from the large number of inquiries most faculty receive.</p>
<p>Thank you for all that information; it helps me a lot! Hopefully I can find a professor that will take me in :). Just an extra question if you have the time, what kind of research project would you conduct with the student you accept?</p>
<p>bump bump bump</p>