<p>1.Did you get your first research opportunity by connections? ie. a family member knows the host
2. If not, did you just mass email university professors? Or did you hand pick them?
3. What previous knowledge of the subject (courses, projects etc.) did you have before getting your first research opportunity? Any AP?
4. What was your role? '</p>
<p>THANKS</p>
<p>b ump</p>
<ol>
<li>No</li>
<li>Not supermass email, but emailed a few (although i didn't too carefully hand pick them)</li>
<li>I was enrolled in AP calc, thats it, and it was a biology project. I had worked on the topic for 6 months or so when I tried getting a mentor for doing a new project.</li>
<li>I did the project myself with a partner and little guidance.</li>
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<p>oh that's cool, did you just follow instructions from a textbook? thanks zogoto</p>
<p>anyone else?</p>
<p>No, we used our own ideas and papers. Look around for other research threads here. There are so many on CC. The first thing you should do is find out what field you're interested in and what topic in that field. Go to a local univ. library and read through some scientific journals. It will take many hours and many days, but its how you get to the top.</p>
<p>1.Did you get your first research opportunity by connections? No. Connections seem to be more important for medicine, but that's just my perception.
2. If not, did you just mass email university professors? Or did you hand pick them? All 4 astronomy department professors who offered research projects for undergrads on a webpage. 2 were willing to take me.
3. What previous knowledge of the subject (courses, projects etc.) did you have before getting your first research opportunity? Any AP? Calculus, some programming in C
4. What was your role? Haha it was the professor's project. Doing your own project is definitely risky and if a professor offers you his project, it's virtually impossible to resist. Still, for someone like me with poor time-management skills, it may have been better to start with a professor's project.</p>
<ol>
<li>Yes, but that was crappy BS research. I also attended a summer program geared specifically for research.</li>
<li>Did it through a university summer program, but they arranged everything.</li>
<li>Did stuff in psychology; no background (honestly the background information was so simple I just read it out of a book). For my EE research, had AP Calc and AP Physics done. </li>
<li>Both projects, I basically did everything but used the professors as informational resources.</li>
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<p>Thanks everyone! Appreciate it</p>
<p>zogoto: that must have took a long time (I saw you got into RSI so everyone was worth haha)... The university of toronto's library is suppose to be second to Harvard in north america, but only the staff and students are allowed to access it :(</p>
<p>BTW how did you understand the science journals? I read a page about the professor's previous research results and couldn't comprehend most of the physics jargon</p>
<p>Email a professor and see if they can get you access to it. Science journals are very important. And yes lol, the first one takes like a couple of hours, but once you know the field, they take 30 mins tops to get the general gist of.</p>
<p>Yeah, I just emailed one. I just found out about a program that allows professors to host a project.. If I get accepted, I'll probably get a pass to access the library :)</p>
<p>I'll answer the questions, because I'm doing research right now...</p>
<ol>
<li>I had no connections</li>
<li>I did not mass e-mail university professors, I e-mailed a small handful of scientists</li>
<li>AP Chemistry, Honors Bio, Chem, Physics, Calculus</li>
<li>currently, I'm developing an anti-HIV biopharmaceutical</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Sorta. I got a letter in the mail about a program called MURPPS (mentorships for undergraduate research participants in the mathmatical and physical sciences).. anyway, it sounded interesting so I joined and they fund me to do research but I still had to find my own mentor. So I've been doing research since I was a freshman.</li>
<li>It's better if you individually write professors asking if they are interested in taking in an undergraduate researcher. Some don't have the funds or time, but others are eager to take some in just to get work done. You can lookup online what each professors research interests are which may help you decide who you want to work for.</li>
<li>Oh gosh, I had AP chem and calc AB in high school, and I had taken 2 quarters of college general chem & calc in college before I started research, but I really don't think it mattered. They didn't expect me to know anything about what I was doing when I started, they tought me what I needed to know & the right lab techniques, etc.. all that was expected of me was that I'd catch on quickly to what I was doing.</li>
<li>I've had two main projects.. first was to synthesize silicon nanoparticles via oxidation of magnesium silicide (although first I had to make the magnesium silicide), and my current project is synthesizing zintl phases for thermoelectric applications.</li>
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