<p>when did you all start doing research during your undergrad? And when did you start actually doing real projects? I'm a sophomore atm and I'm at a lab, but I'm mainly following grad students around and seeing what they're doing 10 hours a week.</p>
<p>Summer between first and sophomore year. I started doing ‘real projects’ pretty much immediately.</p>
<p>Sophomore year; got first project a few weeks in.</p>
<p>Are they independent projects. Who wrote your proposals? I’ve see many people say you don’t actually have any serious projects until you’re a junior+ because you haven’t taken any advanced courses.</p>
<p>My advice would be to stick with it and learn as much as you can. My UG research started as small tasks. But, as I became trained with lab equipment and competent, I was given more responsibilities and eventually a project. Do it!</p>
<p>Second semester of freshman year. Practically speaking, if you are smart, it doesn’t matter what classes you have taken prior to doing research… you will learn a healthy 80-90% of what you need while doing research (or in order to get up to speed), and classes can fill in the details later. That being said, I felt pretty worthless the first semester I was doing research, but I managed to get up to speed in pretty short order. Interest is a big part of success… you have to be interested to do well.</p>
<p>You got a project your freshman year? That’s hard to believe. Even if you are smart which everyone can be considered smart(those who are born smart and those who work hard and get smarter), the projects for engineering still require higher level classes.</p>
<p>From what I have gathered, the experience isn’t so atypical; perhaps I am fortunate in that I found a professor willing to take me on who did research that interested me, but many other people are fortunate in this way, too.</p>
<p>Also, if you already have the answers, why bother asking a question at all? I’ve already explained my opinion regarding coursework and preparation for research… an opinion based on my experiences. If you need a junior-level course in E&M before you can contribute significantly to a research project involving computational E&M, that’s on you; I didn’t. Needless to say that by the time I began work for my senior thesis I had taken pretty much all the courses I needed, and that project was significantly more independent.</p>
<p>I wrote my own proposal with the help of the professor I’m working with. There is one other sophomore and four seniors working in the same lab…the seniors have been there since they were sophomores. I think it’s best to start early so once you do take higher classes, you are already familiar with the large projects.</p>