<p>also i really wanna publish the research but i feel that i am not good enough for that. what do you suggest i do? write an email saying what?</p>
<p>thanks loldaniellol!</p>
<p>awesome. i am going to make this my top proirty for the summer and as my back up plan a trip to stanford.</p>
<p>This needs to be stickied.</p>
<p>Yep, but given the lack of active mods in this subforum, nothing new ever gets stickied nowadays, it seems. I’ve just had to save the link on my computer so I can refer others to it instead of digging through the forum.</p>
<p>Is it too late to start emailing in May? >____></p>
<p>You’ll never know until you try. There’s no law that prevents every professor in the world from accepting high school interns after May.</p>
<p>^ Well said. </p>
<p>Please just try emailing some. You might be lucky! </p>
<p>I don’t think this will be stickied any time soon…</p>
<p>How bad does it look if I forgot to put the comma after “Dear [name]” in all of my emails? T_T</p>
<p>Don’t sweat it.</p>
<p>I just got a professor to be interested in me! 
But we’re meeting this Wednesday!</p>
<p>How do I prepare for this meeting? It’s a computer science professor but I don’t know much about computer science but I still want to research it.</p>
<p>Can someone give me advice on requesting a professor/reporter to be my mentor in the area of journalism? Is this possible? Or should I be sending requests to print/publishing companies?</p>
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</p>
<p>Hmm … computer science is one of those fields you might want to have some background in. But I don’t know what the professor is researching, so it may be fine if you’re not experienced in the field. At any rate, there’s not much you can do to “prepare”–obviously you can’t learn everything about computer science in a day. I’d recommend just looking up some example research projects, so you have an idea of what sort of research topics are examined in that field.</p>
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</p>
<p>I’m not sure there’s much journalism “research” going on, but there certainly are internship-type deals. Although I’m not 100% certain, I’d go directly to the publication–e.g., the newspaper/news outlet; not the publishing company itself–because that’s where most of the action is. I’ve personally looked into this sort of mentorship a little, but really you’ll have to contact individual journalists/writers for your local paper, as all the real internships require people to be 18+.</p>
<p>So do you recommend contacting individual journalists/writers rather than the publication?</p>
<p>Well, I’d try both–and particularly smaller publications. Does your community have any web-only news outlets? I’d try those.</p>
<p>Yeah it does. Thanks!</p>
<p>Hi this may seem like a stupid question but when you ask the professors, what do you ask them?</p>
<ol>
<li>Do you ask if he/she could be a mentor of your project?
If so, do you come up with your own project?</li>
<li>can you just ask for an internship position?</li>
<li>What kind of internship job do you do when you get it?</li>
</ol>
<p>I’m interested in both biology and chemistry. I know it’s too late for this year, but I actually found out that we could ask professors for help today so I’m just getting a head start for next year’s summer.</p>
<p>Thank you:)</p>
<p>Did you even read the original post?</p>
<p>Sent from my iPod touch using CC</p>
<p>
As already mentioned, it’s to everyone’s benefit to spend five minutes reading through an entire thread before posting a question in it.</p>
<ol>
<li>Well, you’re not asking if you can be their mentor 9_9. And sometimes, you can ask to create your own project, but it depends on the prof.</li>
<li>Uhhh … if the lab is accepting internship applications and you qualify, you can apply …</li>
<li>Again, depends on the prof/lab.</li>
</ol>
<p>To clarify: this is not always some sort of structured program. Every professor/researcher/lab varies.</p>
<p>Hi everyone-</p>
<p>I know that x.sunny covered some of this, but I have some personal questions. Sorry about that. </p>
<p>I am a rising sophomore, and I just found out that I am moving back to the East Coast (from southern California.) I am very interested in journalism, and although I know it’s a very very long shot, I want to email my local paper to see if there’s any chance I can get involved. There is no current student internship program, as far as I can tell. This past year, I worked on my school’s award-winning yearbook, and was involved (although not “officially”) with the newspaper. I also attended a national high school journalism conference hosted by the JEA and NSPA, where I was one of two people to win a “superior” award (the highest level) in the write-off I entered. I know my journalism teacher would be happy to write a letter of recommendation for me, and I also have some non-journalism work experience, but I’m not sure how relevant that is. The journalism at my new high school isn’t taken very seriously, but I will definitely be getting involved.</p>
<ol>
<li>How much information should I be including in this email? </li>
<li>I won’t be getting to the East Coast for about a month, so should I wait to go speak to someone in person?</li>
<li>Who should I be contacting? An individual reporter, or the publication in general?</li>
<li>How pushy should I be? When is it appropriate to send a follow-up email, if at all? Should I call?</li>
</ol>
<p>Sorry for the mini-novel. I’m one of the enthusiastic-but-inexperienced types. 
Thanks!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would call them right off the bat–saves more time than email, and they’ll almost have to respond (unless you call in the middle of the night or something). Also, calling is more personal than emailing; whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know, as you’re simply making a preliminary inquiry now.</p>
<p>Going there in person is showing motivation and initiative, but I wouldn’t do that first–call and see what opportunities there are, first. As to who you should call, that would likely depend on what you’d be doing and what the publication’s policies are. At least contact their general office, and then if there are no opportunities there, ask if any individual writers/reporters might be willing to work with an intern or student.</p>
<p>Now, even if you’re unpaid, they might have to deny your request due to legal/employment restrictions and whatnot–that’s happened to me before. I don’t know your state’s laws, however.</p>
<p>And as for the pushiness question, it’s always a fine line between “pushy” and “follow-up”. If they say they’ll call back or something, wait maybe a week and then you should contact them again to ask about what happened, etc.</p>
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<p>Don’t worry, you sound smart, so we’ll let you live :).</p>