<p>Intelligence is multi-faceted. The fact that you say grammar is a good indicator of intelligence implies an element of exposure. How much one encounters something does not determine his/her intelligence.</p>
<p>BTW, I probably know more grammar than you do. But i don’t waste my time perfecting my sentences so that people reading my posts would think im intelligent. That’s just pathetic</p>
<p>As a high school student, menial work is probably all you’re going to get. That, or a programming job. Hell, that’s what undergrads do.</p>
<p>^I’ll take whatever i can get. I’ll be happy.</p>
<p>^^^ I seriously doubt the grammar skills of someone incapable of placing the word</p>
<p>** an **</p>
<p>before a word starting with a vowel. You thought that I was mocking you for your choice of topic? I hadn’t even considered that until I reread this thread. It never crossed my mind that a high school student didn’t know the difference between “a” and “an”. </p>
<p>Your diatribe (aka post #17) shows how ignorant you really are. Instead of looking to see if you had made a mistake (which, obviously, you did) you attacked me. </p>
<p>By the way, a 1st grader could improve:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You can doubt whatever you like but I am pretty sure i can school you on a grammar test.</p>
<p>So your terrible argument was all because I insulted your grammar? How… childish.</p>
<p>And your argument was all because i forgot to put an extra “n” after the “a”?..how…childish</p>
<p>Your arguments were not anymore mature.</p>
<p>And you also managed to kill the point of my thread! </p>
<p>To everyone who is looking at this, look over the futile inane argument between me and liulaw. If someone could answer my questions previously stated…that would be nice :)</p>
<p>“I first email him about volunteering with the projects he was working on, which i recited through his website. Now I tell him that i want to do a project, one that favored my interests? How about this: What if i told him that i wanted to actively be a part of his project, instead of doing menial work?”</p>
<p>I hope it’s OK for a parent to answer since what you’re asking is something that adults who’ve mentored and had interns, etc., have the experience to answer.</p>
<p>Most college professors are very overworked – just as is the case with most employed people now – due to the labor cutbacks in the economy, which means that most people aren’t getting the support staff they need, and are being piled with extra duties that used to be done by others.</p>
<p>The professor already probably has his hands full doing his own research and supervising/mentoring students whom he gets paid to supervise, including college and possibly grad students who are doing individual projects for class, their masters and doctorates.</p>
<p>It is a lot of extra work to supervise someone who hasn’t yet started college, and --no matter how exceptional their high school courses were – would need help with some basics.</p>
<p>Instead of asking the professor to supervise you on an individual project (and do you even have an idea about an individual project or were you expecting the professor to give you one?) it would be appropriate for you to be grateful for anything the professor would allow you to do in the lab including “menial tasks.” BTW – many college students and graduate students do “menial tasks” in university labs.</p>
<p>After you’ve done “menial tasks” for a while you have proven yourself to be reliable, responsible,a pleasant, interested member of the team who has managed to learn things by doing those tasks (and you could learn plenty of things by hanging around the lab and talking to the professor, students about their research), you could ask the professor if he would supervise you in some additional work – some kind of project that you’ve thought of, and that you’d do in addition to the “menial tasks.”</p>
<p>However, if what you’re hoping is to easily be given an project so that you’ll stand out in college admissions while not doing anything really to help the professor or to “earn” such a favor, it is not likely that the professor would have the time/inclination to do that. What you would be asking would be a huge favor of someone who is very busy, doesn’t know you, and, frankly, has no reason to be going out of his way. </p>
<p>If what you want is an interesting science project, there probably are many fascinating and potentially impressive things that you can do at home completely on your own.</p>
<p>"They will lightly go over your credentials and why you want to do research. Then they will talk about their research alot.</p>
<p>The most important thing i can tell you is to ASK SEMI-Intelligent questions about their work. "</p>
<p>This is very important. And the professor would expect you to ask intelligent (not "semi intelligent) questions about his research, questions based on your having taken the time to read about the professor’s research and the professor’s areas of interest. Most professors wouldn’t bother to take the time with a high school student who was asking a big favor of them, but didn’t take the time to even learn about the professor’s research.</p>
<p>Thank you so much Northstarmom. You are such a help! I was from the beginning happy with whatever i got. Some people told me to speak up and express my interests on starting an individual project. But now im reassured that whatever i get, I’ll be happy and grateful with! </p>
<p>Also the professor has only released brief synopsis of his 6 ongoing projects; he hasn’t left any research papers on the website for me to read. So would reading the synopsis be acceptable? Since that’s all i have to read of his…</p>
<p>In case you guys are wondering, the professor did tell me about his research, some of which i was really fascinated with. Now, I will be doing fieldwork, as well as repetitive lab work lol. My professor also mentioned that if i had any science projects in mind, I could talk to him about them. He agreed to be my mentor as well. I am so happy! He was certainly impressed about the questions i asked him and the responses i gave, even though it was a little socially awkward. </p>
<p>For those of you out there, how many times do you go to the lab?
I agreed to do one day/week because of hw, college apps, classes, and other EC’s. Is that enough?</p>
<p>I will start slow and then after college apps are done, I will start my own research project, going to the lab more often–maybe three/four days a week.</p>
<p>My lab has one official meeting per week where we talk about what we’ve been doing. I’m supposed to come in for research on my own time, however.</p>
<p>If you use Google Scholar [Google</a> Scholar](<a href=“http://scholar.google.com/]Google”>http://scholar.google.com/) and search for the name the professor publishes under, you should be able to find some open source versions of his published papers.</p>
<p>Congratulations, airfreshener for getting the opportunity in the lab! Let us know how it goes, including what kinds of things you’re getting to learn about.</p>
<p>depending on the field, pubmed.gov might be a good place to search of papers in the professors field.</p>