<p>My son is trying to participate in the Siemens competition, but there are just so many obstacles. The main obstacle is the lack of mentors. The teachers at his school don't have the time to help him with a project of this size. So the only place he has to turn to are the nearby universities. However, whenever he contacts the professors, they either tell him to go somewhere else, make excuses, or simply not reply (happens most of the time). I've been thinking about a summer research program, but they're too expensive. He's also been having a rough time picking a good topic, mainly because he only wants to do a project based on either physics or chemistry (mainly physics). Earlier he was thinking of doing one on superconductivity, but he couldn't find anyone in a field similar to his. To all former/current Siemens Competition participants, how did you find a mentor? How did you think of a topic?</p>
<p>The solution is to keep pursuing professors. Don’t call them or email them - both types of communication are too easy to ignore. Visit their offices during their office hours or after they’ve posted grades for the semester. Tell them you’re interested in their work and ask if they are willing to take on an unpaid high school intern (eventually most will pay you anyhow). Siemens/Intel/other major research competitions should not be a goal, but rather a natural outgrowth of a solid project. Find a good mentor, work hard, and you will do fine.</p>
<p>Oh, and don’t bother with teachers - very, very few have the necessary expertise, time, or money to oversee a project competitive for national circuit science competition.</p>
<p>Teachers can and do make the connections with the university or corporate professors who can help.</p>
<p>You need a teacher who thinks your child is very talented AND who is connected. Otherwise you child will have to do the leg work. Parents and their connections can also help.</p>
<p>Not sure where you live, but in certain parts of the country there are research labs that have programs in place that take in high school students to work with them on their research and submit the projects to Siemen’s.</p>
<p>Of course this puts students like your son at a disadvantage. But I would certainly ask around to see if you can make any of those kind of connections.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>At our school’s science research program, kids spend a semester outlining Scientific American articles (10 a week) and another semester reading and summarizing real scientific journal articles in a field they’ve identified as interesting. By the time they go looking for a professor to work for they can talk intelligently about their research. Our teacher (at least at the time my older son dropped out of the program) was of no help finding mentors. His view was that if you expected to be taking essentially a college level course you had to behave like a college level kid and that meant finding your own mentors.</p>
<p>Prior to college, Frazzled kids struck out when it came time to find mentors and instead read widely in areas of interest, participated in competitions open to anyone with an interest, and cultivated hobbies such as programming computers and building all sorts of widgets.</p>
<p>Very occasionally peers were able to find mentors by being persistent and with no apparent parental connection, but for the most part, students who participated in scientific research while still in high school found mentors through parental connections. In AP classes, teachers made science fair participation optional (for extra credit)since they themselves were not prepared to supervise projects, and students whose parents were not well-connected were at a distinct disadvantage.</p>
<p>Fortunately, things changed dramatically once they got to college! They still needed to prepare a resume and interview with PI’s who had open slots,and explain why they were interested in a particular lab, but there was near zero chance that they would end up knocking on lots and lots of doors with no results. Of course, they chose their schools partly by asking about whether students interested in doing research would be able to find mentors without too much difficulty, beginning in freshman year.</p>
<p>I do like the idea of reading in Scientific American and real scientific journals in areas of interest. Even if a student remains unable to find a mentor in high school, the experience should give them a real leg up when they apply to colleges and approach college professors for research opportunities, or even when they need to scout out senior capstone projects.</p>
<p>Thank you all for answering my questions! @snipersas, I will definitely advise my son to meet professors in person. However, are you sure that e-mailing them prior wouldn’t be a good idea? I just don’t want the professors to be thrown off or surprised. Also, @uskoolfish could you give a few examples of programs? Again, thanks to all of you!</p>
<p>Stony Brook University has had many Siemen’s finalists. The year she graduated (2008) the winners of Siemens attended D’s high school and worked through a lab in Stony Brook. I know of students from our high school that have done summer programs to start their research at queens college, NYU Poly and Rockefeller University. If you look at the list of winners I am sure you can find the professors and labs/ universities they were affiliated with.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think doing research in high school is kind of overrated. I have a lot of friends who did research in high school, and very few of them are still on track to go to grad school in the field they did research in. In fact, one of my friends was Intel STS finalist with a project in chemistry, but once he got to college, he didn’t take a single chemistry course until sophomore year, and no longer has any interest in it anymore. For the most part, I don’t get the impression that these projects are that serious.</p>
<p>I agree with frazzled though that if your son is not able to find a mentor, that he should still do a lot of reading of papers, since that will be pretty helpful later on. Other options include studying for the USA Physics or Chemistry Olympiads, or taking or auditing courses at a local university. The latter might also be a way to get the attention of a professor who you weren’t able to catch the attention of through e-mail.</p>
<p>Here is a link from stony brook with a list of all their winners. Many are from Long Island and NYC…but there seem to be a few who are from California, etc. Perhaps they have students do research in other locations. Worth looking into and contacting some of the professors in fields you are interested in.</p>
<p>lol…forgot link!</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.stonybrook.edu/simons/siemens.htm]siemens[/url”>Siemens | Simons Summer Research Program]siemens[/url</a>]</p>