Reservations on Research

Colleges & Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>I was interested in doing research for siemens or the intel competition but I have a few problems with doing so.</p>

<p>I was watching the videos on contestants of the competitions and they all seem very intelligent and curious; but if they are so very curious then why submit it to intel? Curious people do research for the sake of it, not getting awards or mention (mainly). Awards should be meaningless or at least icing on the cake. </p>

<p>I could understand people wanting to do research and then deciding to submit to a competition. But that means they began the whole project with the intent of winning an award. Why win an award? For better chances at colleges. </p>

<p>( Granted, I do realize that some people do research and THEN find out about the competitions, but I'm referring to those that already know about the competitions beforehand)</p>

<p>An award like intel/siemens, definitely makes someone's application stand out. Thereby, the whole process begins under the pretext of curiosity with the actual desire to get into competitive colleges.
Essentially my worry is that competitions like intel replace the intrinsic motivation of innate curiousty with the extrinsic motivation of awards due to the social/ filial pressure to get into mit, harvard etc. Consequently, people that enter 1) become "prestige mongers" or 2) are already obviously "prestige mongers" ( people that want awards, privilege, etc.). And as I very very very curious person I don't want to appear as one or become one.</p>

<p>I dont mean to attack researchers, intel contestants, etc. And I apologize if this offends you. Im trying to understand ( I'm curious). Any meaningful input will be appreciated.</p>

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<p>Research never exists in a vacuum. A researcher presents results to others in order to share results and to receive feedback. </p>

<p>Artists do art because they are intrinsically motivated, and yet there must always be an audience for the work, whether the artist is a painter, dancer, writer, or actor. Recognition in the form of awards is very important to artists.</p>

<p>Recognition is also very important to researchers. Researchers, like artists, engage in work that is important to the community. After all, in the case of scientific research, society funds the work. There is therefore a responsibility to share the results, and I believe that almost every researcher desires to learn from peers and public that his or her work is excellent. There’s nothing wrong with wishing to win an award.</p>

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<p>Thanks! That gave me a new perspective on the awards for research. But now i have one (three)more question…I have a ton of research ideas. But how does a high school student typically go about completing research? Do I contact a professor for use of their lab? How does it generally work?</p>

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<p>^ I’m of little use to you here. Research on Intel STS finalists has shown that a fairly large percentage are placed in labs based on personal connections (i.e., family and friends). Some of the larger, well-endowed private and public schools have established relationships with laboratories and regularly place their students. For example, Lynbrook High School in San Jose, CA and Harker School in Cupertino, CA both fit this profile.</p>

<p>My daughter was in a large public school with no such assistance, and neither of her parents are scientists. She tried – and failed – to find a professor or lab in which she could participate in research.</p>

<p>There’s good news in this story, though. She developed her own, home-grown research question and undertook a 2-year research project that culminated in her presenting a paper at an actual scientific conference (as first author). And she did win a number of awards along the way from the local science fair, although she never made it to the national fair. </p>

<p>She ended up going to MIT and graduated from there in 2011. (As it happens, she also won an award from MIT’s physics department.) She’s now in a graduate physics program. </p>

<p>Reach out and contact professors at local institutions, asking if you could help out in their labs. If that line of inquiry produces no results, don’t be afraid to just look around your own environment and think of some questions you could pose and possibly try to answer. Enter the local science fair and share your results. Whatever the outcome, you will learn an enormous amount – about your research question, the research process, and also about your own aptitude for research.</p>

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<p>It’s true that some students are doing the competitions mainly for selfish/ non-intellectual reasons. But I would say that such students usually can’t make it very far; the ones who pour their heart and soul into their projects - the ones who genuinely want to advance knowledge for knowledge’s sake - are the ones who end up winning. I’ll add that many projects are the result of the insight of the professor a student works with, not so much the student him/herself.</p>

<p>Researchers naturally want to share their discoveries with the world. When you discover something significant that hasn’t been said before, you want others to know about it, so that they can build on it and give you ideas as well. Awards (not necessarily through competitions) are of course something you’d like to have, since they recognize your work and insight, but they are not the only reason, or even a large reason, for doing it.</p>

<p>Your post brings up issues in academia in general. Why would someone spend 5+ years doing research as a grad student (where often the professor takes more credit than he/she deserves), a few years as a postdoc being overworked and underpaid, 6+ years working 80-hour weeks as an untenured professor, several more years as an associate professor, before finally making it to full professor well into your 40s, all with pretty skimpy pay compared to industry? It’s partly because they love advancing knowledge and mentoring new researchers, and a university is the best place to do that (not to mention the facilities/funding can be much better than in industry). Part of it is for the respect that is accorded those who are professors. Being a prof commands immediate respect for your intelligence and abilities. Academia is *full *of politics; nearly everyone is trying to garner more prestige for themselves, and it can be maddening. But there is a noble aspect to being a prof, and that’s doing research for the advancement of humanity. The point here is that most profs are probably just as guilty of self-promotion as some students in science competitions. They have more perspective and aren’t as naive, of course, and they probably do love research more, but to say that there isn’t an element of selfishness among profs would be lying.</p>

<p>The same question could be asked of politicians: why do they do it? Why do they spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning, traveling all over the country, shaking everyone’s hands, pretending to believe things they don’t, pandering to every demographic, all for a job that doesn’t really pay all that much? Is it for power? A desire to effect change? Respect? Probably a combination of the three.</p>

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<p>Agreed with CalAlum’s advice. If there isn’t a university nearby and if the research you want to do doesn’t require extensive equipment, you can do the research on your own. I did that in high school and I think it did have an influence on admissions officers, even if I hadn’t gone to Intel or whathaveyou.</p>

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<p>It is generally a combination of doing the projects you really believe in and selling someone who matters that what you are doing is important, so you can sustain your research. There are individuals on various areas of the spectrum when it comes to how much they are looking to promote their work. </p>

<p>I think the main reason for being squeamish at competing early is not having a real final product right yet, and wanting to spend more time thinking and working out stuff before that final product actually comes about to a form that is satisfying (as opposed to just churning something impressive out to get recognized). It’s fine to be that way. I imagine some individuals actually present about stuff they’re passionate about and is in a “final form” enough to have a dialogue about with the relevant academic community.</p>

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<p>Thanks everyone for answering! I did suspect that a spectrum of various interests exist in academia as it does in everything else. In a world where getting into college or prestige is key, the issue of motivation in any academic pursuit is always been a bit suspicious as well. </p>

<p>I am a bit displeased that people can pass on professors’ insights as their own; but I suppose as long as their are learning and exploring the “academic frontier” it’s ok.</p>

<p>I am glad CalAlumni brought up the issue of professors specifically.
I wasn’t really aware that such a dynamic existed. I had always presumed the quintessential elitist professor to the two brilliant researchers competing to be the first to complete their work as something in the movies was reserved for the movies.</p>

<p>At this very moment, I am analyzing the practicality of my ideas and will probably contact a few professors or researchers. Also, anyone else feel free to post. I know that a lot of people have this issue, especially if they’re new to research when you’re still in high school; so the more perspectives the better!</p>

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<p>They don’t really pass off the professor’s insights as their own. At the high levels of these competitions, there are recommendations which say what the intellectual contribution of the student was.</p>

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And this structure continues throughout a researcher’s training, from high school research to undergraduate research to grad school to a post-doc – at each stage, you are expected to become more independent and to contribute more ideas to the conception and execution of your research, but there will always be input and guidance from more senior scientists, especially the professor who runs the lab. He or she is the one whose name is on the door (and the grants!), and it’s ultimately up to his or her judgment to decide which research projects will be pursued in the lab.</p>

<p>I’m a final-year PhD student, and my major project, which I will be publishing soon, is work on a gene I decided was interesting and worth pursuing. So in a narrow sense, this work was all my idea, and my advisor didn’t provide the key insights that led me to pursue this gene. But in a broader sense, my advisor and his past grad students and postdocs have investigated similar genes, and our lab is trying to identify networks of genes that act in brain development – so the methods, resources, and ways of thinking that I used to start my project were fundamentally drawn from the work my lab has done and is doing. I’m not passing my advisor’s insights off as my own; he has trained me to think about the development of the brain, and as a result of that training, I think much the way he does.</p>

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<p>rr5001, to clarify: it’s not that the work they did isn’t their own (esp. at the higher levels of the competition, as collegealum314 suggested). What I mean to say is that many projects are *founded *on a fundamental insight of the professor (hence, the result of). The students still do the majority of the research - investigating that insight, analyzing the results, and doing the writing/presentation. But the reality is that a high school student usually doesn’t know (at least not not to the degree of the prof) what has been done before and what hasn’t. The professor guides them to a niche that hasn’t been worked on before, and this can be where the professor’s insight comes in. Unless you’re a prodigy of sorts (which, granted, many of the Intel winners kind of are), it’s usually hard to find that niche without a professor to guide you.</p>

<p>Remember also that it’s not just a prof who can help you. Other professional researchers, postdocs, grad students and even seasoned undergrads - all of whom work with profs - can help you as well. I’ve heard, but can’t verify, that it’s worthwhile to try to contact emeritus professors, the reason being that they usually have more time on their hands and can be more willing to help out a high school student since they aren’t worried about tenure, university/professional obligations, running a lab, becoming more renowned, etc.</p>

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<p>rr5001,</p>

<p>My son’s experience may or may not be helpful. I, as a homeschool parent, never could figure out these science fair things or even how to find a mentor for my son and we don’t live in an area where this kind of stuff is done. </p>

<p>However, I was trying to figure out what to do with my son for the last two years of high school since he’d taken all the classes in math and physics at the local community college by mid-sophomore year. So, I emailed a physics prof at the local state univ. (2 trolley stops away from our house-yeah!) and explained what my son had done. He agreed to meet my son and he allowed him to audit a particular upper division physics course for free. My son did an excellent job in class and the prof invited him to do research in the summer in his physics lab. </p>

<p>It’s been a great experience, though it’s been slow going for a variety of reasons. But my son’s learned so much and has had a lot of autonomy and independence (has a key to the lab, can go in whenever he wants, etc).</p>

<p>He’s graduating this spring and he never entered any science competitions but he did present his abstract at a research symposium at the univ. which was fun for him.</p>

<p>I guess my point is to reach out with your ideas. Contact people by email and phone. Ask your teachers and parents for help and ideas to get connected with mentors, professors, scientific organizations. Do some research on competitions and try to connectr with other kids who are excited about scientific ideas. Just the fact that you have a lot of ideas is great!</p>

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<p>I think what’s especially useful about sbjdorlo’s post is the notion of building a relationship with the professor. In his son’s case, that relationship developed out of having taken a class. </p>

<p>The OP asked, “Do I contact a professor for use of their lab? How does it generally work?” Mollie’s description of the research process is really useful in this regard. No student, whether in high school or in a graduate program, can expect to walk into a professor’s lab and say, “Here’s my idea, can I use your equipment?” The student becomes an apprentice within a network of people working in the lab. </p>

<p>In my daughter’s case, a relationship with a laboratory of geoscientists developed after a year of independent research on a question of her own. She shared some of her data with scientists at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, and the head of a large project became interested and directed one of his assistants to work with my daughter to collect more data. Maybe this was an unusual case, but this is how the project, after two years of data collection, came to have my daughter’s name as first author. What is common in all of these stories is the relationship that developed between the student and the scientist(s), but that relationship can originate in a variety of ways.</p>

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<p>Ooh, Ok! Now I understand much better! The whole research process seems very interesting now that all of you have given your own views and experiences with it. It seems a bit of easier now to go about doing research. Hopefully I will be researching this summer! Thanks everyone!!!</p>