<p>Please answer my questions below:
When is the best time to start doing researches?
How can you get started?
Is it possible to do them with professors from universities other than yours?
Can you do it by yourself, or do you always have to do it with a professor?
Thanks.</p>
<p>The best time, I feel, is as early as possible.</p>
<p>If you aren't sure of what you would like to do, exactly, you can talk to the professors of the classes that you are most interested in whether they have anything that you could work in. If you are sure, on the other hand, you can of course look at the websites of professors in order to find someone whose research interests coincide with yours, and e-mail them.</p>
<p>It's possible, but unless there's a good reason that you can't work with someone at your school, it's best to do research with someone who you can talk face-to-face with regularly.</p>
<p>You don't always have to do work with a professor --- for instance, Erdos did his first real work on his own, just with the aid of the library --- but, for most people, it can be great to have someone to think of as a mentor --- who can guide your research and also give you advice in general.</p>
<p>I hope that this helps.</p>
<p>Now, I know this is a pretty selfish question, and I plan on starting to research next semester regardless...</p>
<p>The thing if I have to get a job because I need some money inflow next semester, so how hard is it to find paying research position? There are a few professors I want to email and see if I can get a spot in their labs, but it doesn't seem to me like that would lead to a paying job in many situations. I need to get started on both, but I'd like to just kill two birds with one stone...</p>
<p>That depends on your school. At some schools the general policy is to pay most or all undergrads who do research; some schools don't find that to be a priority.</p>
<p>Which school do you go to? If yours has been given a VIGRE grant by the NSF, it's not hard to get funding in math and some hard sciences.</p>