If competitions are the main reason for pursuing your topic of interest, then I’d advise against asking for your own project. Assist in the lab and independently research your topic, and then once you feel as if you’re an expert on the topic you should ask for permission to begin research. The process should probably take around 1-4 years, so don’t expect to begin research on your own project until undergrad. Most undergrad students feel confident enough to begin their projects as 3rd/4th years. </p>
<p>Short answer: ask the professor and look up the specific contest rules. More than likely, you will not be allowed to submit the research, as you’ll play a very minor role (such as data collection/analysis) and receive no credit (you didn’t co-author no paper; that’s the professor’s work). </p>
<p>@TeamRocketGrunt How long would you say the process takes to get involved in research for a high schooler? Is there any way to make the process go faster? (i.e. to meet a science fair deadline, etc.)</p>
<p>Also, do you happen to have any resources regarding biomedical engineering and cell biology? I’m interested in both of them, but I haven’t decided where exactly I would like to pursue a research idea yet.</p>
<p>Thanks for making this thread, by the way! It would have been great to read earlier.</p>
<p>@Yakisoba : it’s definitely easier to help a professor with his project than it is to develop your own.
As for the difficulty, it depends on your goals and interests. If research is your main extracurricular (you have your own project and its going well), it may very well hover near the 10 mark because quality research has a good chance of doing well at the national level. If you’re just doing grunt work for a professor, it’s more on the 1 side of things.</p>
<p>@balledtoohard : depends on the internship and the fair. You can only submit work that YOU do, not work that the other scientists in your group do. There are exceptions to the rule that depend on the fair and the group you’re in. For fairs like ISEF, group projects are allowed if your group members are also eligible to enter the fair. I assume since you’ll be working at a national institution, the other members in your group will be adults; as such, they won’t be able to enter. You, however, should be able to enter YOUR portion of the work to fairs unless the fair specifically prohibits it or unless your work is minor (grunt work).</p>
<p>@rki777 : the speed depends on you, for the most part. If the professor wants you to write a proposal, then the speed at which the project proceeds is contingent upon how quickly you can get a concrete idea together and how long you take to do background research and put together a comprehensive proposal. For me, the idea phase lasted months (more than seven or so months); the proposal phase lasted two weeks. As for science fair deadlines, if you’re interested in ISEF, be sure to get your project pre-approved by your local ISEF coordinator to prevent any problems down the road. If you start your project in June or July, you’ll have 6+ months or so to work, depending on your location. </p>
<p>I can offer you specific advice/resources depending on your location. Just PM me the university in which you plan to work, and I can offer some tailored advice. </p>
<p>@Hawkace : er…up to you, man. Try “Request for a Research Position” or something of that nature. </p>
<p>Ooh. I’m a rising second year college student and I would really really like to get into research…
And there are professors that work on projects and have internships in electrical engineering, just that y’know I was told that I <em>will</em> get contacted for an interview after the professor assigns tasks for students and that follow up email never came despite emailing him to update me on the position…</p>
<p>With a quick search, the opportunities actually are pretty scarce until I get some of the solid Elec Engr. background… Like upper division circuits, electronics, and power system courses…</p>
<p>@hopefulstud If you’re wondering for this summer, it’s 99.999% late. Many labs get filled up even several months before summer begins. I would inquire around in late winter/early spring (February, March). Plus, it gives you prepare your topic proposal, etc, or study up on some concepts you might need during the research. Don’t lose hope if none of the professors reply or agree to take you in, in fact my professor agreed to help me out a week before summer began! Good luck :)</p>
<p>Does anyone have any advice about conducting math research in high school? I’ve done the “research experience” at PROMYS, and now I would like to work on an open problem, but I’m not sure how to go about finding them. The people on Stack Exchange told me to try Goldbach’s Conjecture, but I’m looking for something a bit more feasible.</p>
<p>@Discipulus Math research is very hard and there aren’t many research problems that can be done without any specialization in a specific field of math. Research these days is centered around solving sub problems of large problems which can later help when proving a theorem, if in any case you are interested in building proofs, take a look at a list of theorems. Math research papers never get approved/recognized unless they are posted on certain academic journals, recently there is a wide spread of math papers through arXiv which allows publication of a papers, it’s important to note that arXiv is not a academic journal. If you still are interested in research I suggest you research about different approaches of proof to conjectures. Good luck!</p>
<p>One more question: what if you can’t find a scientific question/topic that hasn’t already been answered? I’m thinking of doing something with freshwater invertebrates.</p>
<p>For now, I’m more interested in being a high school student who just helps out with their research in the summer (not this summer, future summers), when would be the ideal time of the year to ask them about that?</p>
<p>As you put it, “unfortunately” I am very interested in doing research in computer science or physics, but I don’t know where to start. Before I go to a professor, I understand that I need sufficient background knowledge and I need a research proposal. For background knowledge, I am currently taking ap physics , ap calculus, and ap computer science. The problem that I have is coming up with a research proposal. How do people go about coming up with proposals . I see isef winners with extremely complicated topics, and I am thinking “how do they come up with that”. Can you please help me out? I really want to do research this year and enter in Siemens and isef. </p>