<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I was accepted to Columbia with an LL, but was not named a Rabi or SRF scholar.
My career plans include academic medicine/research, so I wanted to know if not being
named a scholar will hurt me when it comes to research.</p>
<p>Either way, I am intensely drawn to the quality of teaching and interdisciplinary nature
of the science courses at Columbia, so there is a high chance that I will choose Columbia
after I visit this month.</p>
<p>Can anybody who is involved in research (particularly hard science research) at Columbia give me an idea of the opportunities offered there? Do undergrads just do grunt work in the labs, or do I have a chance of getting published, conferences, winning scholarships, etc. despite not being named a scholar? Are there certain professors who are more inclined to work with undergrads? </p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>My roommate is not a scholar. He’s a MechE and has been doing research with a professor for the past year and has already published.</p>
<p>I’m not a scholar and I’ve been working with a professor, one on one, on the side. I got into an REU for the summer at Columbia with free housing and nice stipend. </p>
<p>I don’t think you will be disadvantaged at all. You just have to approach professors, and convince them that you are genuinely interested in research. I think there are certain professors who are more inclined to work with undergrads. However, I’ve found that its kinda easy to figure out who they are based on culpa reviews. If they have good reviews on culpa, then they at least care somewhat about teaching undergrads.</p>
<p>No. Special programs just make it easier to get into research because they make the connections for you, but anyone can do research with professors. Most of the undergrads in my lab are not scholars of any type.</p>
<p>I am not in the hard sciences, but my field (psychology) is considered a natural science at Columbia. I’m a graduate student, btw. I would say that the chances of an undergrad getting published are slim, but that’s at any school. Usually, you simply don’t have the expertise to contribute significantly enough to a publication by the time you graduate, not to mention that you have to come into the research process at precisely the right time in order to get credit (long enough before a study is over to actually have participated in conducting it, but close enough to its end that a publication can actually be in the works). Given that many projects can take 3 years or more, the timing is often not right for undergrads. Winning scholarships is also not a given, since there are very few of them for undergrads beyond the first year.</p>
<p>But you certainly can do research and present at conferences. Whether or not you will do grunt work depends on your advisor and on how many graduate students and postdocs you have in your lab. Typically, the more grad students and postdocs there are in the lab, the more likely it is that you will do grunt work, because the grads and postdocs will be doing the meaningful work. I will also say that almost all undergraduate RAs start out doing some kind of grunt work, regardless of lab or school type. You have to pay your dues. Somebody has to clean the beakers and feed the rats.</p>
<p>Lots of my friends attended CU for undergrad and were not scholarship winners. A number of them are well on their way to careers in academic medicine.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody. I’ve been looking at CULPA and the department researchers’ websites to get an idea of what research would be like in their labs. Yeah, it’s probably more realistic that I’ll be washing beakers and stuff at the beginning, but hopefully that translates into something more meaningful by the end of my undergrad.</p>
<p>I’ve been getting cold feet about coming to Columbia after looking at the CULPA reviews…but it’s not like any university is completely flawless. Hopefully the professors aren’t as bad as many make them out to be. Getting into university is one thing, but deciding is so difficult. Meh.</p>