<p>Should I contact profs now to get into research freshman year? I don't even really know what I'm majoring in..... how would I go about doing this?</p>
<p>Do you have something specific in mind? If not, I'd advise you to take some classes first and see what interests you. In general, researchers want students who can commit, not students who don't know what they want and are just planning to check out the lab for a month.</p>
<p>You don't have to know what you're majoring in, but I'd definitely at least check out faculty profiles to read about their research and see if it sounds interesting to you. If you really don't know, even after looking at profiles, then I believe you should wait until you get here and take some classes.</p>
<p>I was planning on researching the projects of different professors, and if there was one that was interesting and possibly pertained to my future major, I'd see if I could offer help researching.</p>
<p>I've never had any research experience though, and I've never had a job either. What exactly do we have to do to convince them to let us do some research? Recs? Essays?</p>
<p>yeah i second that question...how do we convince prof's to let us do research?</p>
<p>You could put together a resume of things you've done, even if they're not related to the research... just to give the prof an idea of who you are. If you have any relevant coursework, mention that. Also consider reading some of the professor's published work. I would send an email introducing yourself and describing your goals (ex. "I am looking for a lab in which I can learn the following skills and work towards my own project in the future"). Offer to meet with the professor once you get to campus so that you can learn more and let them get to know you.</p>
<p>Whatever you do, no essays, these people are way too busy to sit down and read something over maybe 3-4 sentences that you've written--they get hundreds of e-mails a day, so you do not want something that will take more than 20 seconds to read. And most will probably not bother even opening a resume you put together. Write short and sweet e-mails to a bunch of profs and hopefully you'll get a reply back. For most of them you won't, so don't sit there and wait for one for more than...let's say, two weeks. I've had one reply two months after I e-mailed him only to tell me no. Here's the basic formula:</p>
<p>Hi/Hello/whatever salutation you please Professor/Dr. _____,</p>
<p>I'm currently a freshman looking for an opportunity to gain research experience. I read some of your publications on ______, and I'd really like the chance to get involved in that or related projects you might be running. If possible I'd like to meet with you at a time of your convenience to discuss things further. Thank you for your time, I hope to hear back from you soon!</p>
<p>Sincerely/Best wishes/whatever ending you please,</p>
<hr>
<p>Edit the above as you see fit, if you want, add in coursework you've taken, but keep it simple.</p>
<p>It may also be advisable to wait until you get to the school in the fall. That way you can talk to them face to face. It's far easier to reject an email than someone who personally walked to their office and offered to help on a project...</p>
<p>Uh, really. I've done both, believe me, it's just as easy to get rejected. That, and trying to track profs is ridiculously hard, even if they do have scheduled office hours that quarter. They're often traveling to various conferences, doing research, on sabbatical elsewhere, recovering from surgery, I've seen just about every reason possible that they can't meet with you.</p>
<p>lol...if stanford advertises itself as a undergraduate research institution...how come it's so hard to get research...</p>
<p>I'm under the impression that Stanford states that whoever wants to do research has the opportunity to research, but that doesn't mean that you don't have to work to find a lab that will want you. Especially since there are so many professors and labs that you can work with.</p>
<p>then what makes it different from any other state university...opportunity wise that is. I mean stanford basically brags about how much it spends on undergrad research as oppose to other universities. if emailing professors is the only way then anyone can do that at the honors program at their state university.</p>
<p>E-mailing profs is hardly the only way; it just happens to be the simplest and mostly widely used. You might get notice of a research opportunity through a class, through a seminar, through your advisor, whatever. The reason Stanford can brag that it's a research institution is that it was really the first to note the value of undergraduate research and provide funding for it (way before HYPMB), and that despite some of the initial difficulties, everyone who wants to do research usually finds a way to make things work.</p>
<p>shramleon trust me...even as a high schooler doing history research, I have gotten numerous help from stanford professors that enabled me to get some prestigious recognition...so really, I don't doubt the accessibility of the profs. </p>
<p>(For example, Mark Mancall, the asian studies and jewish studies expert and creator of SLE program, helped me out tremendously for my documentary on the creation of state of israel. So did numerous others from Stanford's Taube Center of Jewish Studies)</p>
<p>gqunit: its not their abilities its our ability to get their attention...how did you come in contact with mark mancall for example</p>
<p>email....also all of the profs i had contacted sent me their phone numbers. Mark Mancall also invited me to his house right next to Stanford, so i went.</p>
<p>...ok. i agree that history profs are more free time..but still, the fact that they had been so eager to help a random high school student such as me interested in their work was one of the reason I wanted to go to stanford.</p>
<p>When I e-mailed professors in 10th grade, I found that the Stanford professors actually replied personally while Berkeley professors didn't even respond...I mean, I didn't get to work with any of the Stanford professors eventually either, but that was because they weren't working on what I had been looking for. Not to make this a Stanford/Cal competition thread!!! It's just an observation from my personal experience a couple years ago...</p>
<p>I don't think this was ever brought up, but is there a difference to getting research in the social sciences versus the hard science (say Political Science vs. Physics)?</p>
<p>I think anyone that really wants to do research can definitely get it. I know at least 10-15 kids in my dorm alone who do research. It is pretty easy for certain departments and harder for others ... (i.e if you want to research in Math or CS you might need to know significant amounts ahead of time)
Overall if you know what you are doing it's pretty easy to get into a research group in any field. Of course you shouldn't expect professors to hold your hand if you don't know what you are doing.
I wanted to do graphics research and had only taken two CS classes. The professor kindly met with me and told me that I should perhaps take his graphics course and then we could talk.
It helps if you just take classes and intro seminars in fields you are interested in to get to KNOW the professors, then landing a research opportunity is much easier.</p>
<p>Entire program dedicated to undergraduate research:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/urp/%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/urp/</a></p>