<p>I've obtained a really really cool internship at Weill Cornell/Columbia Med School under a medical researcher/professor (not sure if he has an MD). He's currently looking at strokes. I've gone to a couple Med school seminars and I've been told I should look him up and just find out as much as possible. In terms of Intel I have no idea what's required, how long anything takes, or what my basic focus or goals should be. Can anyone who's done it before help me?
~diana
P.S. I'm probably going to the finals @ the National Academy of Science in DC just to see the Intel finalists. If there are are any questions you feel I should ask these people please post these in your reply as well.</p>
<p>what grade r u in? If your not in already in 11th you have plenty of time to work on it. Email the professor to see if he can send you articles he has published, things he is currently working on so you can be familiar with the topic, then once you start, make it clear what your goals are, meaning, some researchers don’t really get how in depth the INTEL stuff is, and sometimes give or suggest some diddly type busy work for you, and that is not what you are there for.
I started by finding a mentor in 9th grade, took awhile, actually I had a topic in mind and then emailed many working in this field, all of them were more than accomodating and sending me tons of things to read. Found one that took me for a summer and then did one research paper on that, and then he helped me develop my own based off what we did that summer and it was all done by email at that point and 30 plus volunteers which was from sophmore into junior summer thru submission a few weeks ago. So get familiar with scientific design/purpose of what your trying to prove. The design is the most critical part, keep a narrow focus, again it all depends on what your mentor is working on, what you and he can come up with that is feasable and will be quality. </p>
<p>As far as asking questions, if you know the area you are doing the research exxample you said the professor is studying strokes, that type of research obviously would be in the medicine field so focus on those finalists that did their research in that field, as that would be completely different from a engineering submission or math/computer submisson. </p>
<p>You could google the professors name, also go into PUBMED and put his last name/first name into the search engine, and you cna get all his published articles, read them, then get working on understanding what it is all about, sometimes that is the biggest problem is the lingo used. Good luck, it is a TON of work, but honestly was the best thing I ever did as far as experience, makes a great essay for college applications.</p>