<p>I believe that for the vast majority of kids nationwide, the possibility of participating in actual “research” while in high school is laughable. My hometown is so far out in the boonies, that it is a half hour drive just to get to an interstate, and an hour drive to a town (not city) big enough to support research facilities and a small college.</p>
<p>But keep in mind: kids in small towns and rural areas are not being kept out of fine universities because they didn’t do research at age 16.</p>
<p>Where I live now, there are opportunities for kids to participate in real research, but I don’t for a minute think this is typical.</p>
<p>DS Googled for information about labs in the area. He went so far as to find out what specific research the lab directors were interested in, read their abstracts, and sent some very focused emails. He got a summer internship at a lab that doesn’t ordinarily allow HS students and woke up early every morning and took a train and subway to get to the lab (and he’s one of those teens who hates to get up early). He has a knack for writing software and made a difference in the work done at the lab; everyone at the lab was generous with their time and were supportive of him; he was a listed co-author on a presentation. It was a wonderful experience for him. </p>
<p>Not only was he not “connected” via his parents or school, I (to my shame) somewhat discouraged his emails to the labs, saying that they don’t accept HS students. As much as I’ve told him that it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission, I wasn’t sufficiently encouraging at the time but he soldiered on – good for him for not listening to me. </p>
<p>Fwiw, his HS now has a teacher assigned to encouraging and facilitating internships, a position that didn’t exist in the past. To an extent, DS’s experience was a factor in that position being created. I am beyond proud that he leaves his school a better place than when he entered. </p>
<p>My child worked two summers as a research intern with a college professor at a university. It was a matter of luck. She was one of 800 applicants and had to compete with many topnotch local magnet school candidates. (tjhsst) Fortunately she got an interview call and was offered a summer research internship. This is with no connections. One project resulted in coauthoring a paper presented in a scientific conference. The reason for pursuing this was to gain more knowledge about opportunities in the STEM field. She found it to be a good learning experience and enjoyed the work. This opportunity helped her in deciding what she wanted to study in college. She also volunteered at the hospital on weekends during the school year. There are a lot of nice summer programs out there that are very expensive. She decided to search for summer experiences that didn’t cost money but where she got a valuable learning experience in return. </p>
<p>Bottom line is, it does happen. Not just for connected kids or those with their own cars. Nor just kids with some outreach program. Point is, do something. No one should believe these kids are curing cancer or solving world hunger. But they can see past the hs roster of activities. One of mine had a comm health internship via the state (after 10th, I think.) Sounds like more than it was. But ironically that one experience was central to what she hopes to do with her life, after college. </p>
<p>One of my kids did an award winning research project in the garage. He spent less than $50 at Home Depot. He did ask for a ride there to get his supplies. My husband and I are neither scientists nor mathematicians. It does happen. And, no I am not the mom of Jobs or Gates. However, this may have been one of those outlier situations of Gladwell’s.</p>
<p>Thank you for all of the responses. It seems that “research” can be a lot of things, but apparently there are many opportunities out there. It is just so far removed from what is available to kids in our area. It is discouraging to constantly read about how if a kid is interested in a STEM field they should be demonstrating interest with STEM ECs. Before I came to cc I had never even heard of Seimens or INTEL. At our school a science fair project is more along the lines of comparing whitening toothpastes than to curing cancer. I had never heard of Olympiads. And all of these math ECs with various combinations of letters? Still have no idea what any of those mean! Here you are either a sports kid or a music kid… it hasn’t even been that many years since I saw the acronym STEM for the first time and wondered what the heck it meant!</p>
<p>Surprised by the posts. I think it is extremely easy to find a research project.</p>
<p>I signed up to monitor Fukushima pollution in Pacific. Just sent an E-mail and joined a group that collects water and algae to monitor radioactive strontium. </p>
<p>Colleges are aware of the limitations of your location. However, the piece that goes missing is usually involvement in what is available to someone in their own environment. If they are only concentrating on high school and nothing else, they are missing out. For a few hours a month, you can get involved in at least one local activity. People think they need to cure cancer and nothing else can be worthy and that is far from the truth.</p>
<p>If the kid is doing any of this in order to strengthen a college application, he or she is doing it for the wrong reason. And sometimes it shows.</p>
<p>In the hs, STEM can be in math or sci olympiad, or team, if it exists. Can do robotics. Tech crew for the hs drama dept. A lot of stem wannabes say it’s because they want to help people-- back that up with some real, continuing efforts in community service. Outside opps do depend on the home community. But you start small, get to know the work environment, etc. It’s not that it expresses real adult work- it’s that it shows you can get up and go pursue something, even if the first steps are tiny. Good luck.</p>
<p>Btw, very, very few kids come through with Siemens or Intel. The idea kids should (or have to) pursue that for a good college is very “CC.” </p>
<p>Agree it doesn’t need to involve curing cancer. There is a nursing home in my neighborhood which is participating in a research study on spatial acuity in the elderly. It is walking distance from the high school. They need LOTS of research assistants since some of the participants will need to have the instructions read to them slowly, translated into their native language, will need help performing some of the tasks, plus help evaluating the results.</p>
<p>I get that someone in a rural area won’t have access to NIH type grants and cutting edge nanotechnology. And I also understand that living within a subway ride of Rockefeller University or another research intensive organization is a luxury that most kids in America don’t have.</p>
<p>But really- there is nothing going on in your towns hospital, county jail, crime lab, Audobon society, animal rescue, nursing home? No historical society which would love a volunteer to help date documents and ephemera by testing the ink? Nobody is testing air quality samples by your local highway or checking lead levels in the corn fields???</p>
<p>Environmental preservation groups often need vols for outside research. Health related corporations take on some kids. A local engineering co may want some free help, you get to see how they operate. Even a week or two is a start. You can also google for ideas.</p>
<p>We’ve had quite a few kids doing various projects testing the water quality of our local pond. My younger son (not a STEM guy) had a historical project that was nothing fancy, but I am convinced the way he wrote about it on his application showed that he had the mindset of a historian. (And a sense of humor.)</p>
<p>I think it’s laughable to suggest a high schooler has actually conducted valuable scientific research unless we’re talking about a really small (and I do mean small) number of exceptionally gifted people. Research is typically what you do in grad school. Even my undergraduate classmates who assist professors with research are mostly doing stuff that doesn’t, strictly speaking, qualify as research, such as writing lit reviews/summaries of articles, transcribing interviews, doing data entry and building websites, etc. (Not to say this isn’t valuable work that is both necessary for academic research and useful to the student, but it’s a different kind of intellectual labor from what professors and advanced grad students do.)</p>
<p>I would guess that in most cases when CC posters brag about doing research as an extracurricular activity, they are misusing the word ‘research’ in much the same way many English speakers misuse the word ‘fluent’ when they describe their foreign language skills. I find it much more likely that the posters in question simply did the grunt work real researchers can’t be bothered with.</p>
<p>Edited to add: Often students do really cool-looking things that are very useful for their development but are, nevertheless, replications of other people’s experiments and projects. I wouldn’t call that research either.</p>
Having worked in several labs that often had high school (and college) students coming in to do summer projects, I can say that a majority of the work that these students did “piggybacked” on the work of grad students and post-docs in the lab. The student was attached to a lab member who taught the kid a couple of techniques. Depending on how things went over the summer, the student might be allowed to process a few samples. If a student got his/her name on a paper, it was through the generosity of the principal investigator and lab members.</p>
<p>It’s certainly possible that the “story” painted by newspaper articles or even the Intel paper/announcement overstates the student’s contribution to and/or the significance of the work. When I was working at NIH, we had a high school student who came in for the summer but goofed around in lab a lot. Our boss instructed us to help him out as much as possible. At the end-of-summer poster presentation, the student presented a poster that contained 6 figures. The data he personally collected comprised only a small part of 1 of the figures. He was a smart kid, competent writer, and articulate speaker. He ended up winning the “best student poster” award. He used the same work to compete in the Intel competition and became a semifinalist. Pretty impressive results considering what he did in lab…</p>
<p>I don’t dismiss kids for showing initiative-- ever. We applaud the Quarterback and the runner who are certainly not breaking new ground athletically; we applaud the middling level violinist who churns out another rendition of a Bach sonata. </p>