<p>Kind of a general question. I have no research experience, but if I wanted to do some in college, would it be hard? As in, would it be hard for someone with no experience to get the right resources and stuff?</p>
<p>At Stanford, it's pretty easy, I think. Isn't research part of the undergraduate curriculum?</p>
<p>It kind of depends on the department. If you want to do biology research or something like that they often need helpers do menial tasks... i.e running tests, collecting data (and you can learn along the way).
For things like Computer Science, I have had a hard time getting into research. The problem is that most of the research is at a very high level... I am only a freshman and have no way of contributing, unlike bio or other "physical" fields there is not as much grunt work to pass around. In addition to this, we have such a great CS department that there are way too many qualified people filling in those spots! so there is no room for a frosh like</p>
<p>saliksyed, how about hospital medical research with a university professor or something?</p>
<p>Salik - A friend of mine (majoring in compsci and electrical engineering, I believe) said that research is abundant in the compsci area, that there was no problem getting it, and that all students are required to do it in their first two years, or something to the effect</p>
<p>thing is, she's really math-oriented. I mean, she has LOTS of experience, so I was wondering, how long do you think someone with not-so-much experience would have to wait until they could get involved in compsci research?</p>
<p>I started research at the medical school when I was a sophomore. Two others in my lab started as freshmen. Right from the beginning, we were taught how to maintain the cell lines (we work with mouse models of brain tumors), implant tumors, do optical imaging, sacrifice animals, and do histology. Some labs do want younger students to do grunt work, but luckily my lab was not one of them.</p>
<p>I had NO research experience going in. I just started emailing faculty members at the medical school; a few said I could meet with them, and I eventually chose a lab I liked. They liked that I was young because I could stay with them for a while, be trained by them, and hopefully make a meaningful contribution.</p>
<p>I also have a friend who does slightly more clinical research at the hospital; I don't know exactly what she does, but it involves interviewing patients. She also started during sophomore year.</p>
<p>Research certainly isn't required, but there are many excellent opportunities to do so if you'd like!!</p>
<p>Hmm... well I know that I couldn't really find any research oppurtunities in Comp Sci yet (but then again I am only a freshman... and maybe I haven't tried hard enough)</p>
<p>I do know that there are some very able CS people in my dorm and they've had trouble finding places to get involved as well ... mainly because they are freshmen.</p>
<p>I've never heard of any research 'requirement' for the first two years. Although I do know that once you declare a CS major it is very easy to get into summer research through the CURIS program</p>
<p>Are there any research/internship kinda things for engineering majors?</p>
<p>Are there any student led project teams? How hard is it to get involved in something like the Stanford DARPA project?</p>
<p>There are student led projects like the Stanford Solar Car Team.</p>
<p>I think it would be pretty difficult to get on to the DARPA team as a freshman unless you have significant experience already with AI, Computer Vision, probabilistic analysis etc.</p>
<p>Note: Two juniors were responsible for designing the tracking algorithm they used on their cameras... so it is definitely possible to get into research projects, it's just hard if you haven't taken any classes!</p>