<p>Is there any program or similar where a high school student can do research during the school year in Southern California? Or is it recommended that I contact a university professor and try and try to get an internship?</p>
<p>It’s tough to do research during the school year since, likely, you’d need to be going after school hours and the grad student that would be supervising you might not be around during those times. It’s also difficult to get much meaningful work done with less than ~10 hours a week, so you’d have to expect a pretty large time commitment.</p>
<p>For that reason, I don’t know of any preexisting programs that happen during the school year, but you could always try contacting professors directly to see if they’d let you volunteer.</p>