<p>“Don’t dismiss kids for seeking outside opps because they’re not groundbreaking. So much starter work isn’t.”</p>
<p>That’s true. And there’s something to be said for learning about the research process from the ground up. In the social sciences that might take the form of programming online surveys, conducting interviews, coding data, cleaning up tables and graphs. That’s how I got my start. And you learn a lot from that. </p>
<p>D’15 has done that kind of work with me, but I would never think of encouraging her to include that as anything other than a “part-time job working with my mom’s research company.” She’s not conducting her own research, she’s helping me (and my staff) with ours. And that doesn’t sound all that different from what @Bartleby007 describes happening with the much more prestigious NIH internship. </p>
<p>I had a rather one dimensional view when I would see “research” listed as an EC. I envisioned science prodigies in lab coats working in high tech labs conducting original ground breaking experiments. I can now see that it can mean a lot of different things, and adcoms are certainly aware of how the term is tossed around. @blossom I don’t necessarily agree that S traipsing into the neighboring corn field and measuring corn stalks under the guise of research makes him a more viable science major than if he stays home and practices concerti.</p>
<p>Not all research is conducted in state of the art labs. The last two years I received 1st place in different divisions at our county science fair. I do everything from home much to my mothers horror. As far as equipment goes, I buy containers at the dollar store, things from around the house, chemicals online, some special items I get from my high school. If I can’t get it I will do without and note it in my paper. The ideas are my own but I do run them by my dad and a couple of science teachers. </p>
<p>@mibsprincess The fact that you’re doing research based on your own vision and figuring out how to operationalize the inquiry on a budget and with your own resources is beyond cool! ^:)^ </p>
<p>I never said that measuring corn stalks makes someone better. My point was a response to some of the snarkiness on this thread that somehow devalues a kids initiative if he or she is not working on “groundbreaking” or innovative research. My gynecologist is taking part in a study about middle aged women and where they get their health information- yawn. Nothing ground breaking or innovative there, and no lab or equipment is involved. But if it means that women get fewer non-essential tests, or that doctors can direct care to people who really need it instead of responding to patients who beg/request unnecessary interventions, seems like it’s a good thing.</p>
<p>Why be snarky about a kid’s initiative? And if you don’t want to call what he or she is doing research- then exactly what would you call it? And my doctor is part of a big grant to do his research- should I tell him that it’s not really research- he’s putting on airs?</p>
<p>Jeez. If measuring cornstalks in a systematic way, using the scientific method and documenting precisely the results with control data for comparison, and ascertaining some useful information from it, is not research- what is it?</p>
<p>Lots of kids in my neighborhood seem to spend their free time texting and taking selfies at the local yogurt store. I kind of wish someone would send them out to a corn field.</p>
<p>Just a note…I wanted to make sure that other posters know that I am NOT being snarky when I talked about how impressed I am with kids pursuing their own research visions vs. being a minor part of an “official” research program. I think that kind of initiative should be applauded and is often overlooked. </p>
<p>I mean, I didn’t list this as an EC, but I did alot of projects that I feel count as original Research. Everything from education policy analysis in rural communities to metaphor analysis for one of my favorite writers, involved alot of compiling and synthesizing data. I did these these to meet requiremens, but to me, they fall under the research umbrella.</p>
<p>Or perhaps I’m misinterpreting the term “research”</p>
<p>@TrinidadJames, I think in this context we are referring to work not done to meet school requirements. </p>
<p>As for the snarkiness referred to by blossom, I just try not to let it bother me. It surely doesn’t bother my son; he knows what he did was valuable, whether it’s considered original research or not. I would discuss more details, but I don’t want to lose whatever anonymity my son has remaining :-* </p>
<p>There are tons of research fields. Don’t just get caught up into the idea that research equals science research. That doesn’t hold nearly half the time. I have friends who have done research papers in fields ranging from the math and sciences to public policy, linguistics development, and historical topics such as D-Day. </p>
<p>Research at its very essence has a very broad scope. Lots of things qualify for research and more HS students are doing research in various fields. This is part of the reason for why research is becoming more and more common on college applications. Colleges have generally started to look for research as an indicator of true interest in a subject because students are pursuing their own studies as well as providing new contributions to the world. </p>
<p>In addition to showing initiative and drive, with these sorts of experiences, where you work under adult supervision and presumably meet the needs (whatever they are,) kids gain. Far surpasses starting some pie club at hs or running a pencil sale for the pep club or writing a letter to the editor. </p>
<p>I just mentioned environmental work because so many non-profits are doing legit research work with needs for volunteers to collect and sometimes process what’s collected. (I’m not talking picking up trash one Saturday.) Lead levels in corn sounds pretty interesting to me- and it may just get a kid thinking about the issues behind it. Presumably, whatever the frame is, the kid is plugging in, over a period of time, to real world work that has some stated purpose and asks him or her to adapt to that. Lot s of examples. </p>
<p>One never knows when they start a research effort if they will break new ground. And of course, much research builds off the efforts of others, whether it is a grad student, professor or some other study. If one denigrates the effort of a student because they get help, build off other’s research or doesn’t break new ground, that person doesn’t understand the nature, and ultimately, the value of research.</p>
<p>The person who won the Intel STS last year built a biofuel (e.g. algae) lab in her bedroom. “Sarah took to sleeping with the same light cycles that her algae required to grow”. </p>
<p>I think there are many, many outlier situations…well, if there are that many, maybe outliers are the norm ;)</p>
<p>Real scientist laugh at the so called research high school kids do, that is understandable. Because with kids’ limited technical knowledge and lab skills, there really is not much they can do. ( I heard of med students complain about they had to “babysit” high school kids in the lab). However, kids should be encouraged for doing/learning whatever they can. I am sure the scientists would like to have their own kids doing the same too, even though the kids’ “research” is kind of laughable to them. However, if the kids lie or brag about the work they did, and presented/claimed something that is not truthful, that is not to be tolerated. </p>
<p>@stemfriend - great video, thanks for the link</p>
<p>Went to a small school that cared more about sports than chemistry.
Worked on doing research since 6th grade.
Did this project under the loft of her bed. </p>
<p>@phoenix88. No. I expect that some people who pretend they are scientists laugh at the research high schoolers do, BUT “real scientists” do not. </p>
<p>A “real scientist” understands that a great idea can come from the efforts of a “mere” high school student.</p>
<p>We live in a large city, so we have more “stuff” available to us.</p>
<p>However, my son sort of stumbled into his research. We homeschool and I was looking for another physics class for him to take since by mid-sophomore year, he’d taken all of the community college physics classes.</p>
<p>I found one at the local state uni which is two trolley stops from our house. I emailed the prof, told him about my son, he agreed to meet him, and my son took it from there. The prof allowed my son to audit an upper division physics class for two semesters and since my son got the highest grade in the class, he invited my son to do optics research in his lab during the summer.</p>
<p>He did optics research, I think, or at least he built an optical microscope or optical trap (or something like that). In the prof’s letter of recommendation, he said that my son worked as well as his graduate students, so whatever my son did in the lab, I guess he did it well.</p>
<p>His prof even allowed him to enter his project in the SRS (student research symposium) even though my son wasn’t an official student there.</p>
<p>It was a good experience if only because my son had total autonomy in the lab and was really working on his own.</p>
<p>This is funny, because grad students complain about having to babysit med students who come in for the summer to do research.</p>
<p>This type of thread happens again and again, and some of the same people spread the same misunderstandings (not referring to the OP or the person I am quoting above). Even when starting from ground zero, one summer is more than enough time to learn lab skills AND produce enough work to put a nice poster or project together. I know because I did it and I’m not some kind of lab prodigy. Plenty of people do it. As long as someone has taken a good AP bio class, someone could walk into a bio lab and very quickly become adept at enough basic techniques to produce data. It doesn’t matter if you are 23 or 15 when you do it.</p>
<p>And first and second year grad students, even at top 5 universities, often need a lot of help from the more senior students, in order to function in the lab. Even if you have a solid skill set, you may have to learn something to do the work in a lab. If you worked with one organ in the past, you may need to learn how to work with another one. </p>
<p>In terms of the ideas, it really isn’t that typical for even grad students to be generating new directions (although that is the ideal case), often for the simple idea that there is so much lab work that reading the literature sometimes gets left behind in favor of sleep. </p>
<p>But the bottom line is that people don’t understand that “doing research” doesn’t mean you are operating at the level of a professor. There is a continuum of learning, and “just learning techniques” and seeing how people do experiments, and reading a few background papers so that you understand the project you are doing and presenting it is a valuable experience. And the lab work itself is tedious and requires a lot of effort. And all of this is worthy of recognition. The people who do well at Intel/Siemens all have mastered enough techniques and done enough work to get positive data; they all have read enough to be able to present their work and field questions about why they did what they did and what should be next. A rare few have actually come up with the central idea of their project, and this makes it much more likely for them to win. Yes, most of the projects these days that win take place in established labs. The theoretical projects are most often done entirely by the student, and these guys tend to be geniuses.</p>
<p>In the science research program in our high school, they work very hard to get the kids up to speed so that they do understand the context of the work they are doing. Freshman year they read 10 Scientific American level articles a week and write summaries. Spring they focus on an area of interest and read articles at a higher level on that subject. By the time they are working in a lab working on breast cancer say, they have a basic knowledge of the literature in that field. They do a huge amount of work before they even step into a lab. Many students doing research will have had at least the AP in that subject as well. Certainly by the time they are applying for the Intel/Siemens awards.</p>
<p>Exactly–Expectations of work that will be paradigm-smashing or publishable is Science or Nature is the only laughable idea here. Conscientious work done in all earnestness will always be applauded by “real” scientists.</p>
<p>As a homeschool student I have absolutely no “connections” to anyone in the science field and was still easily able to find a lab willing to take me as an assistant. It’s not mysterious or hard, nor do you have to be a genius to find such opportunities. Here’s what I did:</p>
<p>-Googled to find the names and e-mails of several professors in the biological field conducting research at a local university.
-Picked my first choice of research as well as some backups in case the professor said no.
-Did a little research on first-choice professor’s past projects and read some of his scientific journals (easy to find through google). This part is extremely important as it shows the professor that you’re serious, informed, and interested in his work.
-Sent first-choice professor a very polite, concise e-mail basically explaining that I was a highschool junior wanting to go into blablabla field and was very interested in working in a lab to further explore my interests. I included a few sentences about how much I admired the research he’d conducted and why I was interested in his research in particular. I also let him know that I had no grand expectations of what I’d be allowed to do and said I was willing to do anything even if it was just sweeping the floors. </p>
<p>He immediately got back with me and said he’d be delighted to take me as a lab assistant. Eventually one of his grad students took me under their wing which made a world of difference. I started by just cleaning equipment, then helping run tests, then doing little experiments on the side, and finally just started working on an original research project. I most certainly piggybacked on the professor and grad student’s research at first, and I see nothing wrong with that. That’s how you learn the techniques and process so you can ultimately experiment on your own ideas. Even if you never do any groundbreaking research, at the very least, it will give you a headstart as an undergraduate.</p>