<p>I have an internship at UCSD in the neuroscience dept. and I'm applying for a summer internship at a reasearch institute. </p>
<p>I'm just curious because I've heard of students that do their research individually.</p>
<p>read A LOT. that's pretty much the trick. you should be curling up with a nice journal paper before you go to bed each night.</p>
<p>how do you get the scientific journals? you can order them, right?</p>
<p>in the beginning you may need to do that, but not necessarily always...esp. if your topic isnt extensively studied.</p>
<p>do any of you also do lab work?</p>
<p>i do extensively. i work at a medical school, and work alongside a professor thats doing research in biochemistry. ive been working for about a year. the first 4-5 months, i pretty much got used to all the techniques and procedures involved with research, and over the last few months have developed my own project under his guidance. im at the lab 2-3 days a week, for around 2 hours each time. </p>
<p>starting in january, a professor in the astrophysics department at columbia has agreed to take me on after a year of my emails ; )
cant WAIT for that. itll be interesting trying to take on two projects at once.</p>
<p>scholar.google.com is a good source of articles. or just go straight to a professor's website. Usually I'm looking for something specific so I know what to look for. i've done both theoretical and experimental work. I found myself reading a lot more for theoretical though</p>
<p>Biochemistry and Astrophysics. I see a real concentration in your interests.</p>
<p>How do u guys get started? I was looking online at the intel science fair and some of these experiements are way to complicated for high schoolers to perform or even think of. I don't get it, i am good at science and know more stuff than some kids, but then they are doing projects and its like what the heck, there is no way they came up with that by themselves. help?</p>
<p>its not possible to have interest in two fields? i see why you call yourself a newb.</p>
<p>most high schools kids, like myself, work under a mentor. the research these mentors do is centered around a certain topic, that we high schoolers pretty much adapt to. they give us a portion of the entire project, and help us work on them. so, its not like high school kids start working on very specific fields and develop their own projects individually. everyone, well i shouldnt say everyone .. but most people, work under professors and develop their own projects with the help of mentors.</p>
<p>Ah i see, so i guess the first step is like to get an internship or something right? Maybe a university prof might allow me to work with him.</p>
<p>It's a lot easier if you work with a professor. (Plus there's a higher chance you'll work on a good topic, and get a paper out of it.) And try to work with a professor at a good university. They tend to publish a lot more papers. You might even end up with a publication in Nature or Science, like I did. And if you do, it'll be a fantastic hook for any college you want to apply to. It might even be worth moving to an out-of-state college for a summer just to conduct your research (if you have the financial resources or relatives in the area).</p>
<p>I don't recommend you read journal papers unless you really have to. Even grad students (in my field) don't really read the papers, they just look at the abstract to see if there's anything there that'll help them do what they need to do. And if there is, they'll look at the figures, and if those are interesting, they <em>might</em> look at the methods. But most papers are downloaded and relegated to the archives. If you actually try to read journal papers, there's a good chance you'll either (a) become discouraged and get sick of your topic (b) end up reading a ton of stuff you really didn't have to. It's best just to talk to the other people working on your project and ask for an explanation of the relevant information.</p>
<p>If you do need a journal paper, the university you're (hopefully) working with will usually have a subscription to it, and you can get it free.</p>
<p>Yes I actually just started research under a professor at UCSD. Not very prestigious...but I am very thankful! I work in the neuroscience department. I hope to be included in a published document in junior year!</p>
<p>Good luck!
One piece of advice: write down everything you do, and keep it in some organized sort of format. I did research one summer, and a year later I couldn't remember which files did what. Remembering these things is really useful if you want to build on something you did earlier and abandoned, or if you want to summarize your results for a paper.</p>
<p>you also sound like a misinformed prestige whore ambition bot! (cch)</p>
<p>keep in mind UCSD has extremely prestigious graduate programs, but i can feel your disappointment through the screen.</p>
<p>Dude, I would KILL to do research of any kind (sadly, it ain't possible here in India :(). Do NOT be disappointed, UCSD is a great place!</p>
<p>Ilike dice-</p>
<p>I'm glad to have a place at UCSD. I'm just saying that in comparison to talk<em>about</em>ambition, it's alot different. I like UCSD's programs but I dislike the school's environment. I'm applying there for backup sinse I live next to it. </p>
<p>To get the internship, I just took up some courage and emailed 3 chief professors from 3 depts that I find interersting. Luckily, the neuroscience dept said yes! The pychology dept said they accept only undergrads and the 3rd dept ignored my email. Anyone could try doing this!</p>