<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I'm applying to college this autumn (I'm currently homeschooled) and, beforehand, I'd like to do some Computer Science research, probably in AI. I'm currently working on a small computer vision project.</p>
<p>There's a university (where two of my siblings graduated from) close by, and I'd like to ask some of the faculty if they'd help me with my research. When and how do I ask (i.e. when are faculty usually the least busy?) </p>
<p>Also, for those of you who've done this before: do professors usually help pre-college students on projects that the student's already worked on for a while, projects that the student's just begun, or projects that the professor suggests?</p>
<p>I'd really appreciate some advice.</p>
<p>Thanks! ^^</p>
<p>Also, should I only ask academic staff, or associate/research/teaching fellows and administrative/technical staff as well?</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I did research in bio, so some things may not apply to you</p>
<p>My advice is to email as many people as possible if the university is large and prestigious. Most of the people you email will probably not have time or space. (This is the norm for bio research, not sure about compsci) You just write them a nice email saying a little about you and what you want to do research on and attach your resume.
The project thing depends on the mentor. Some mentors refuse to take precollege students, some are delighted to. It helps if you come in with some idea of what you want to do, and then they can help you take it further.</p>
<p>Okay, thank you :). When you say “email as many people as possible”, do you mean that I should contact everyone in the department who seems to have time free, or just people in the subfield I’m doing a project in/interested in working further in (Artificial Intelligence, to be precise?)</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, what kind of project did you do in biology, and did you come up with the project on your own, or did the mentor suggest it (if that makes sense?). Also, do you usually have to have done research in the field before?</p>
<p>Well I originally started doing research in cancer bio, so I emailed the heads of all the interesting looking labs I could find. Cancer bio is really competitive, and I kept getting passed over for grad students or because the lab was full. I then emailed the head of a voice clinic instead, since I was interested in that too, and I ended up there. I didn’t have a specific topic in mind, so I just read the descriptions of the kind of work the lab was doing and applied anywhere that looked interesting.
My mentor gave me a couple of basic ideas, and then I read more about them and decided exactly what kind of project I wanted to do.
I’ve never done research before.</p>
<p>Oh, right. I’d probably want to be doing something as academic as possible, since not only do I want to do some research, I also need a teacher recommendation; I’m homeschooled, and so I’ve never had a teacher other than my parents, formal or otherwise, before - but I need two recommendations by this autumn. </p>
<p>I hate to say it, but I’m probably doing this for the recommendation just as much as the research, which is why I wanted to see if I could do the kind of project where someone actually taught or showed me something. I have to say, your project sounded pretty interesting, though - what do voice clinics usually do, anyway? -curious-</p>