<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I'm pretty inexperienced and ignorant of the whole "science research" process so I decided to consult you guys, the College Confidential Crew. As background info, I volunteered in a lab over the summer with this professor but I'm still pretty hapless.</p>
<p>I'm a junior and I really want to do research at a lab during the school year but I have no idea how to begin. Here are some of my questions. </p>
<p>Do I need to have a project in mind already? I know I want to do something concerning biology or chemistry but don't have any specifics in mind. </p>
<p>Where can I find a mentor? I'm probably going to ask my science teachers to see what they know and I sent an email to the professor I worked with over the summer. Is that a good idea?</p>
<p>If I start during the spring and do research 5 days a week after school, continuing on through the summer until the beginning of the new year, will I accomplish anything during that time interval? I really enjoy science and want to experience something fresh and divine. </p>
<p>Thanks! Help me, College Confidential; you're my only hope.</p>
<p>I actually had the same questions you did so I emailed an undergraduate at Stanford who did scientific research during his junior year. This is what he replied</p>
<p>How long have you been researching? I’ve been involved in research the summer after sophomore year and up till now. I worked in different labs each summer, and also worked part-time in a lab during my senior year.
How do you develop a thesis (especially if you were to go the route of an independent researcher),
is it primarily with the aid of the mentor (aka, thesis developed by mentor and just going with it) or do you approach your mentor with a carefully thought out thesis before taking part in research(emphasis on the how)? Most likely, your mentor will decide what you’ll be working on (as well as your thesis…or hypothesis). As an intern, you don’t have much say into what project you get - which may seem like a limitation, but in all actuality its exactly whats need to happen. The contrast between your high school knowledge against your mentor’s years of experience and graduate school education will be pretty evident on your first couple of days.
I suggest that you get familiar with your mentor’s research by reading his/her published papers, and reading into the field that he/she works in. As you spend more time in the lab and ask more and more questions, you’ll start to feel more comfortable with the lingo of the research field and then you can act with more independence in the types of assays you choose to do and way you carry out procedures.
Would it be ok if you had a rudimentary knowledge of the field of research (also meaning that your knowledge is based primarily on what ever you learned in AP classes or in various articles?) Yes. As a high school intern, you can’t be expected to know a whole lot. The best you can do is just read up on relevant literature to your mentor’s research.
How many hours a day did you spend in the lab? art time, full time, or both? Over the summer I work 8-10 hours a day. Over the senior year when I worked part-time, I worked 8 hours a week.
What is necessary in being able to present yourself to prospective mentors? Excellent communication, some know-how of what’s going on in your mentor’s field of research (cite a paper or some projects that he/she’s been working on).
What would you consider as being the main stages of internship (assisting → some lab experience → co-authorship?) You can’t expect to get a name on a paper after an internship. It does happen, but personally - the most important part of an internship is just getting research experience. Ideally, you would get a small project (a small subset of your mentor’s work perhaps) that you can call your own. But that doesn’t always happen, so many interns just end up helping out their mentor with whatever they need to do. This is perfectly fine. As long as you get experience, your internship will have fulfilled its purpose (then…next year, you may be able to ask for a project, or get into another lab)
Any pointers in article writing? Read plenty of papers to get an idea of how scientific writing works. And don’t be afraid to ask questions!
What is the time range of research completion (Im planning on giving 2 years) This will depend on whether you get a project, the length of your project, and also your mentor. I was very fortunate to have a mentor who gave me a project that I could accomplish during the 8 weeks I spent in the lab (10 weeks total if you count the time I spent writing up the paper). I do know of people who return to the lab the next summer to continue or start a new project, but it seems that a summer internship typically lasts about 8-12 weeks.
Are there any programs in particular that you’d advise? Depends on your area. I’m in the DC Metropolitan Area, so I sought out internships at Georgetown, and NIH (where I am currently). If you’re in my area, I would suggest the NIH SIP program, the Navy SEAP program. If not, just email university post-docs in the area - don’t be afraid to email a bunch, its always in your advantage to make a choice between more than one mentor than…to not get any responses at all.
What was the best part about your research experience? The fact that I’m working on real science that will actually help people is awesome. I’m a position now to contribute something major to the development of a structure-based RSV vaccine. It’s really cool, and I’m learning a bunch.
Level of commitment? What you get out of your internship depends on what you put in. I made it a point for myself to learn as much as I could at the beginning so I could set myself up to contribute more and more later on the internship. Writing a paper (for Intel/Siemens…not like Nature/Science) also takes quite a bit of work, so if you plan to do that - be prepared to put in work after your internship is finished. </p>
<p>Above all, I would just advise you to ask questions - the interactions that you have with your mentor will be (by far) the most you learn from an internship. Build a solid relationship and have fun with it!</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for the advice and information! It was extremely helpful!</p>
<p>Anyone else have anything else to contribute?</p>