<p>I am an international student, sophomore, majoring in Mechanical Engineering with Aerospace Engineering concentration and I plan on going to graduate school for Aerospace Engineering. I am aware of the fact that to get into top Aerospace Engineering graduate programs like the ones at MIT, Stanford, etc, applicants mainly need undergraduate research experience and high GPA. I have a close to 4.0 [not 4.0 though:( ] GPA as of now. And beginning this spring semester, I am also involved in assisting my physics professor and his graduate students with research, as an undergraduate research assistant.
But my question is, does the FIELD of undergraduate research matter quite a lot, especially the field of summer research program? I'm a Mechanical Engineering sophomore, but I got into a summer research program (2013) in the Biological Sciences/ Bio-Engineering department of my college. But since I want to go to graduate school for aerospace engineering, which is not even close to what I will researching about this summer, is it still a good idea to participate in this program? I mean, will I be at a disadvantage for not having a research experience in the area of my future graduate application? Or is it just a quality research that matters, not the field of research?
I have to accept this summer research position offer by May 1, before I could even hear from some other summer research programs, including MIT's MSRP which I have applied for Aerospace Engineering research, and will hear around mid-March. So I don't know if I should accept this one, and participate in this, or if I should let go this one and hope to get into other research programs. Could people with insights on these matters please share your knowledge? I am really confused about whether or not I should be accepting this offer for summer research in Bio department.
Really appreciate your help.</p>
<p>Doing research in general is important, not as much what it is about. It is a plus to do research in the area you are interested in but definitely not required. No worries.</p>
<p>Field does matter. You don’t have to do exactly what you are interested in, but it helps to do it in your general field. A related one can help, but graduate professors want to know that you can somewhat hit the ground running in their lab with the basic technique required to do research in their field.</p>
<p>For an example, let’s take my field, psychology…let’s say someone wants to be a cognitive psychologist and do research that involves scanning using fMRI. Obviously the ideal kind of lab would be one in which they work with a professor who uses fMRI techniques in his research. But let’s say there’s no one at their school doing that.</p>
<p>It’s not going to help them at all to do research in history or political science…we don’t use the same conventions, and the research doesn’t translate well. Few of the skills they will learn there are going to transfer to doing psychological research, so it wouldn’t count for much on an application.</p>
<p>It will help them a little if they did some sociology research, especially if it’s relatively close to psychological research. But sociologists also use different conventions from us, so this may not be sufficient especially in a “harder” area of psychology like cognition.</p>
<p>The sort of baseline expectation is that the applicant has done some sort of psychological research, even if it’s in another subfield. Doing field or survey research in like community or social psychology is okay; there are still some crucial skills that would be left out (concrete knowledge of experimental methods, for example) but it’s still giving the basics. It will be much better if they did experimental research in developmental psychology, running experiments with children. Bonus points if it overlaps with cognitive psych - for example, if your lab is looking at children’s cognitive development.</p>
<p>So that’s how you should think about your research. Are you still going to learn the conventions of engineering research methods? How much of the technique you learn in the bioengineering lab will transfer into an aerospace engineering lab? I’m willing to bet that many of the things will be the same, and the major differences will be the research questions and a few of the hands-on laboratory techniques you learn. That’s fine for the majority of programs.</p>
<p>ME major here as well. Any research will help along with the letter of rec from that experience. In the related research area would definitely be a plus. However, how big of an impact that relevance will have will definitely vary depending on the admissions committee and the preference of the adviser you’re interested in working with.</p>
<p>Why did you apply for a summer program in that area if you are not very interested in it? </p>
<p>Similar to ME, AE is a broad major. You don’t just say “I want to go to graduate school for AE.” You still got plenty of time left to explore and decide. Many research areas from ME cross over into AE, but biological science/engineering is a bit further away unless you’ll be doing research in something like mechanics/materials?</p>
<p>I see what you mean. Sorry for using the vague term AE. I am interested in Aircraft Systems Engineering mainly, which is a program at MIT. As an international student, I can’t apply to REUs as they’re only for US-citizen. So the only research program I could find was this BioEng research at my college and the MSRP. I got accepted in the BioEng research, and the projects I could work on mostly relate to Bio-Engineering, meaning research using knowledge of fluid mechanics, instrumentation and data acquisition and similar stuff (I don’t think I will be doing tons of “bio” stuff since I’m not a bio major; I shall be working on the technical side of the project mainly). I have to reply about my acceptance by March 1 but I won’t hear from MSRP till mid-March. That is why I am so confused as to continue or not with this program.
Also, I am guessing, I could find a more relevant research program in my next (last) summer of college (I am a rising junior now).</p>
<p>Do this:
Email the program you got accepted at and politely ask if they can give you an extension.
Also, email the MSRP program and tell them something along these lines:
I was accepted into another summer program that wants me to make my decision soon. Tell them that they’re your first choice.</p>