<p>Everyone tell me that Caltech is a research school, which is so different from other schools.
Does someone tell me how undergraduates do the research in class? Does freshman or sophomore research and publish the papers like in well-known high school summer internship program of medical school or University? Are they graded by the result of their researches in class? </p>
<p>Any reply will be highly appreciated.</p>
<p>There a tons of ways to get involved in research on campus. The most common one is SURF- Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Basically they pay you to do research over the summer. I can tell you that lots of freshman and sophomores do that.
If its something you are interested in, you can generally do research during the year too, so long as you find a faculty member to work with (and I don’t think that’s that hard given the number of people doing it- but maybe someone who has done it already knows more?) This can be done for credit or money. A senior thesis is also a possibility if you would like to do one.<br>
Whether or not you publish depends entirely on what you are working on and whether it deserves a published paper, I would assume.</p>
<p>Thanks JNTfor reply, but I meant “in class,” not out of class. A University of my state gives lots of the selected students the opportunities to research with professors personally, who also recommend their students to do it again at other institutions over the summer. During semesters, is there any difference in class between Caltech and the other school. And I saw that there are lots of professors in Caltech, who had not undergraduate degree of Caltech. Their “teaching” in Caltech is better than the teaching of professors from Caltech Under, in the Honor classes of the state university?</p>
<p>I’m not sure I understand your last question. Our professors are chosen primarily because they are the best in their fields at research. This means they can talk about their research in class (which is very cool as they are usually on the cutting edge of whatever field you’re majoring in). We don’t do research “in class”, because then it wouldn’t really be research. In my opinion, one of the big components of researching is organizing a plan for your own discovery and then executing it, on your own. For example, we have “research credit” where you can do research instead of taking classes, but the only oversight is that your research mentor is satisfied with your work.</p>