<p>Hey everyone!
I'm a sophomore in the Bay Area and I really want to do a research internship. I have a vague idea of my interest (biomedical research, maybe something related to cancer) but I don't really know where to start. </p>
<p>Do you have to have a specific project topic before emailing professors? Also, what are you supposed to write to professors in emails? </p>
<p>Is it possible to start something around November or December and have a project ready for the Intel Science Fair? Any more info related to science fairs/research internships would be extremely appreciated!</p>
<p>As a HS student, it may be difficult to get an internship for liability reasons and competition with undergrads and grad students for space. However, you don’t know until you try! Your best chance is to find research programs designed for HS students and apply to those… don’t know if there are any in the bay area.</p>
<p>The actual topic of research is not important at your stage; finding the right mentor or any mentor at all will be your challenge. Emailing professors is fine, but if you have any sort of personal connection (through family, a family friend, etc) to a professor, that is your best bet. As for the email, make is short and to the point: who you are; why you want an internship; and how much time you can devote to the project (both time/week and how long you will devote to the project in months/years). I also suggest emailing department heads to show your interest. They may be able to think of an appropriate match. Don’t get discouraged if professors don’t respond to your email… many of them won’t even read the email, and others will read but not respond. </p>
<p>Understand that taking on HS students is a big time-drain for a research lab… you will need to be “hand-held” for quite some time by another lab member, and this takes away from the lab’s productivity. The tangible benefit to the lab only comes when you can independently perform lab tasks, and this can take months… depending upon the task. If you are willing to be in the lab throughout the summer on a full-time basis, that would be a plus in the eyes of a lab head.</p>
<p>I don’t know the level of research presented at the intel science fair. However, it’s possible to have material for a poster in six months if you devote significant time to the project each week. If your research proceeds at a typical pace and you only present research that you personally have performed, you will likely only have one or two figures with actual new data… a lot depends upon how much time you can spend in the lab, mentorship quality, the “easiness” of the project, and luck.</p>