Question About Research

Pre-College Issues
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Hello everyone, I hope you guys are having a good morning. I just had a question on how I would go about doing research in high school (currently a freshman). I’m really passionate about chemistry and neuroscience but whenever I try to look at things to research in these areas I always end up coming to the conclusion that I simply don’t have the intellectual capacity to do so. I’m currently enrolled in Chemistry Advanced and will take AP Chem my sophomore year because of both interest and our teacher strongly recommending it but how do people do research freshman year about the most difficult topics that extend into college??

I like neuroscience a lot and I’ve been watching a lot of Dr. Sapolsky’s free lectures at Stanford on YouTube about human behavioral biology but I want to do more. People gripe at me when I tell them about my plan to skip pre-calculus this year so I can take calculus, and they groan when I tell them I’m going to be taking AP Chem next year but the main reason I’m doing it is because to understand topics that I’m interested in I need a higher level of study.

Research these days seems so crucial to colleges and I love the idea of exploring the unknown but I’m stumped. Do I have to study non-stop?

If anyone could share any thoughts on how I could get started it would be amazing, thanks a lot for reading everyone.

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Instead of worrying about doing research as a high school freshman I’d suggest focusing on doing the best you can in school, including taking the most rigorous courses that are right for you. Most research done by HS students isn’t significant (obviously there are always exceptions) and no college expects a high school kid to come up with novel research results. If you are still interested in research later in high school you could reach out to some local professors (if there are any) and ask to be involved. There are also paid programs for high school research, but I am not a big fan of that.

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Research is not crucial for college admissions, despite what some people seem to think in certain online circles. My suggestion to you as a freshman is first focus on your classes, taking classes your are ready for, and then do your best in them.

If you also enjoy self-study, feel free to do that as well, but you should also make sure you are living a complete life appropriate for your age. Like, get plenty of sleep–you actually need more in these years than you did a while back. Get plenty of exercise, whether that is part of an organized activity or just something you do for yourself. Spend time meeting new people, and also deepening relationships with people you know. All this is necessary for your development as a person, and also actually good for college admissions. But that is not why you should do it.

OK, then down the road you might have time you can use to do things like internships, summer programs, and so on. Again, do that if you want to for the actual experience, and as part of a well-balanced life. If some of that leads to research activities, great. If not, also fine.

Finally, be open to changing your mind about what you love. A lot of smart kids start off liking science and math because they find those subjects most stimulating and rewarding when they are young. But a lot of subjects get a lot more interesting the deeper you go. People who don’t think of themselves as writers early on start enjoying the challenge of writing a really good research paper. And so on.

For some this happens in HS, for others it happens in college, for others it happens after college. And of course some people stay in science and math. But staying open to these possibilities is again a good idea when you are young, and once again will actually be good for college admissions.

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Just make sure you also take bio and physics in HS.

That does not make sense. Would your school even allow this? Calc is difficult enough and to not take pre-calc first seems to be setting yourself up for potential difficulty.

Regarding research, it is absolutely not crucial for college admissions. If you want to pursue it in HS go ahead, but I don’t think anywhere will hire you (or allow you to volunteer in a lab) until you are at least 16.

Do you have a local college near you? If so, contact professors who are doing research of interest to you and ask if there is any possible role for you. If no local college, there are online providers of HS research experience like Polygence, but they cost $. Many students who do those paid programs have beneficial experiences, but already on this thread you will see parents who think differently.

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You don’t lack intellectual capacity- you lack a solid grounding in the building blocks of science. Math, math, more math. Bio, Chem and Physics. Learning how to write a lab report. Learning how to design an experiment whose results will be replicable by another researcher in another lab who doesn’t know you. Gaining proficiency in the appropriate programming languages. Statistics-- and a course where you learn to manipulate large datasets and interpret regressions.

Relax. The world won’t run out of neuroscience before you develop the skills to be useful in a lab. Take the appropriate course sequence in your HS. Don’t skip steps. If you are ready for calculus, your current math teacher will tell you. Don’t rush through the basics- no scientist wants someone in their lab who is shaky on the fundamentals of inquiry.

Every researcher alive is standing on the shoulders of giants- Newton, Galileo, Leibniz, Einstein, Crick, Watson, Miescher. Take the time to learn what the giants discovered before you try to join them.

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Thanks everyone for your responses, I’m sure I have a lot to learn and I think the best course of action would be to take as many AP and dual-credit math and science courses as I can, I can also try contacting some professors at my local colleges to see if they recommend anything.

As for testing out of pre-cal I’m pretty resolute on that my teacher tells me to go for it but to be careful and I would very much like to take AP Calc BC alongside AP Chem next year so I can gain more depth on the subject.

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For some context, I was a math major in university, spent most of my career doing something that most would have called “research”, and have a daughter currently employed in biotech research.

Regarding skipping precalculus: I would strongly recommend not doing this. You should take precalculus before you take calculus. As a potential math major, I spent the time to learn all of high school algebra, trigonometry, and pre-calculus very well. Then I found calculus to be very straightforward (including multi-variate calculus and differential equations). I have consistently heard that students who skip on any of the prerequisites typically struggle with calculus. I then found both high school algebra and calculus to be very useful, and to be skills that I used many, many time both in future classes and on the job. Learning algebra and calculus very well is something that is definitely worth the time and effort. The only students who might possibly skip any of these classes are students who are exceptional in mathematics, and these are specifically the same exact people who are likely to be using these skills many times in the future. I would not recommend skipping any of the prerequisites for calculus, and also would recommend taking calculus at whatever your high school considers to be the normal pace.

Mathematics is an area where what you learn today is based on what you learned last week and last year. What you are going to learn next year is based on what you are learning now, and what you learned last year. This continues at least through calculus. At some point there is some degree of “branching out”, but not for quite a while. It really is worth learning each step thoroughly before you proceed to the next step.

It is unusual to get involved in research as a high school student. My daughter who is working on biotech research right now never did any research in high school (as a senior I think that she took one advanced class where they built robots and ran them up and down the hallways of the high school). I think that she was half way through her bachelor’s degree when she first found opportunities to do research as a university student. I do not recall doing any research at all as a high school student.

You will become a stronger student as you get older. You might want to see how you do in your current chemistry course before you decide when to take AP chemistry. You will want to take other sciences in high school. One option for example might be to take either biology or physics next year, and then take AP Chemistry your junior year of high school. You might want to discuss this with your Chemistry teacher closer to the end of the year (after you and the teacher both see how you are doing this year).

Most of us don’t. At a few highly ranked universities (MIT and Caltech come to mind) students do study quite a bit. There are very good research opportunities at a wide range of universities.

However, research, and life in general, are much closer to being a marathon than a sprint. We need to take things one day at a time. Someone once said “Make haste, slowly”. The point is that you cannot do everything today. You do what you can today, rest up a bit, take time to have some fun, then you do what you can again tomorrow.

Also, you need to take the time to learn the basics before you will be ready to do more advanced work. This takes time. You will get there, but not right away.

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No, this is not what folks here are telling you.

The best course of action is to develop the strongest possible foundation in the language of science- which is math. And to create the strongest possible foundation in the “holy trinity” of core science subjects which is bio, chem and physics.

You need zero dual credit courses to do this. You do not need to rush the process. You need to churn out lab reports and take quizzes and tests and do homework. And you need to learn to write well.

Relax. Find a way to challenge yourself without turning your HS years into an endless hamster wheel.

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Thank you for this, I spoke with my counselor and kids that are ahead in science at my school typically take AP Chem and AP Bio in sophomore year and I have a few 10th grade friends that are doing this and say it’s doable at my school. We have high AP scores as well. So I think I will just do this.

I understand your concern about testing out, what if I did an alternative, took the course at a university over the summer, wouldn’t this also teach me what is necessary? (A lot of people I know have taken courses at our approved uni Texas Tech and they have done good). Thank you for your advice I really appreciate it.

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Thank you, I play 2 instruments outside of school, exercise, and volunteer so I am trying my best to keep a balance.

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Fantastic! Neuro is a fascinating field involving the intersection of psychology, physiology, chemistry, genetics, etc. so being a balanced human being with diverse interests will help you a lot!!!

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I don’t know if this will help, but we use a private HS considered very, very good for STEM. Normally, they discourage people from doing our advanced classes at the same time, and further discourage doing the same field in consecutive classes.

They are fine, however, with doing certain summer classes if people would like. So, my S24 for example, did Physics first year, then did Chemistry that summer, then Bio second year. His main interest is Bio, but he then did advanced Chemistry electives his third year, and now is doing our Advanced Bio course to finish off his sequence.

They will also allow you to take advanced electives concurrently with your last first-round course, if you want even more electives. So, for example, if you are ending the first sequence with Biology, you could start taking advanced Physics, Chemistry, or other electives at the same time. But usually you do not take multiple advanced classes at the same time.

The typical advanced math sequence does BC in third year and electives like multivariable in fourth year, which he is doing. But a math friend of his similarly did a summer class to be able to do two years of math electives.

I am pointing this all out just to suggest you can keep things largely in sequence and still end up doing plenty of electives, including if you use a summer or two for this purpose. And our HS really prefers that for all the reasons discussed above (about how this sort of careful sequencing really is useful to actually learning science and math well).

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@ChemistryP
You are a tad bit early. Focus on doing well in school and finding your interests. There are some legitimate high quality research opportunities for HS students but typically those that are junior. Here is an example of 1 through NIH:
https://www.training.nih.gov/research-training/hs/hs-sip/
Spend the next 2 years building a solid foundation in the classroom and then go from there.

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Thanks everyone for your advice. Could anyone recommend some things I could do regarding behavioral biology (the course taught by Dr. Sapolsky on Stanford’s YT page)

Perhaps a certification I could do or something that I could show on college apps?

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You aren’t hearing what we are saying.

You don’t need to be getting certified in Behavioral anything. You need the building blocks of a scientific education- math, biology, chemistry, physics. I know it doesn’t sound exotic or fancy, but the way to become a scientist is to actually learn the basics of science. Coursework and lab work. The nuts and bolts.

Who is certifying you? Have you even taken a statistics course? How can you evaluate the efficacy or success of something in a lab without understanding sample sizes, standard deviations, all that basic stuff???

Slow down.

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Just learn about stuff you’re interested in. There is no official experience or certification that you should be seeking – nothing to put on a college app. You can certainly try to work it in an essay if it fits well.

I’m a neuroscience prof and my spouse is a chem prof. We have not encouraged our STEM-loving kids to do any HS research, and we’re happy they have showed no interest in doing any. We are both entirely opposed to HS students paying for research opportunities, and I would expect the vast majority of science profs feel the same.

You should follow the excellent advice of the others on this thread. Keep learning about neat stuff, and you’ll be great! Don’t worry about having something official to list about being interested in these topics.

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Thanks for the replies @ColdWombat and @blossom I’ll try to come back to research next year or so then when I’m more ready. Have a good evening!

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Or maybe not at all, perhaps I should just try my best in these high level classes.

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You’re welcome. But what I’m saying is to NOT “come back to research” next year. Wait until you’re in college. I don’t want to be overly harsh, but you need a lot more education under your belt before you can meaningfully engage in research. Very few college students even have that. So focus on all the stuff the others on this thread have said, and learn about the “fun” stuff like neuroscience etc. just as a hobby until you get to college.

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I am also opposed to the idea of paying for it, it seems silly to me to tell my parents to pay $4k to a company so I can write one little sentence on a report or pour a liquid into a beaker to put on my college app. If I do research I want it to be meaningful and I understand why I would have to wait until college to do so. Thank you!

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