<p>I’m planning on majoring in science and upenn is probably my top choice. I’m very interested in doing research as an undergraduate. could you science majors describe your involvement in any research that you have done? I want to be able to contribute to a project rather than just watch grad students do research. also, how accessible do you find your science professors? do the bigger classes make it impossible to connect with professors, or do you just have to take the initiative? I’m wondering because I’m trying to decide if I’m going to apply to upenn ED.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sas.upenn.edu/biochem/vspmls.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.sas.upenn.edu/biochem/vspmls.html</a>
There was for a short time on CC a girl who is doing Vagelos at Penn. One of her mentors is on CC and you might do a seach for their inquiries.</p>
<p>The University Scholars Program is also a good way to ensure that you'll be invovled in legitimate research, since CURF pays for you to do research rather than the lab in which you work. You can either be invivted as a freshman (as I was) or apply later on (you probably need to have at least a 3.7 by the end of freshman year).</p>
<p>On the subject of actually getting into a lab, the best way in my experience has been to research various professors through the SAS, engineering, and Med School web pages, get a feel for what they do, pick a couple you're interested in working for, and email them.</p>
<p>Important note: even if you have research experience from high school, which is pretty rare to begin with, no matter where you go to school you WILL have to do grunt lab work for a while. No professors or postdocs will give you meaningful research work until they know they can trust you, so be prepared to clean glassware and make media for a couple months, after that they should start giving you more legitimate stuff to do.</p>