I’m aware that students need to reach out to professors if they want to do research. But what kind of opportunities are actually available for an undergrad studying CS or engineering?
My son is also thinking about US schools like Wesleyan, Amherst, Cornell, Penn, Rochester, Brandeis and a bunch of others. (LACs offer some good points, bigger school’s offer others.) So I’m trying to get a sense of what it would be like trying to find research positions at McGill vs the range of US schools he’s looking at.
If you google “URSI” “Computer Science” and “Vassar” you can see what Vassar Computer Science students get up to in the summer (Undergraduate Research Summer Institute). From the URSI homepage: “URSI students have gone on to present their research at regional and national meetings, and have published their work in a variety of publications, including top-tier scientific journals.” you can see specifically what the Computer Science students have done in summers past. The nice thing is you also get paid- a lot! Humanities students are covered as part of the Ford Scholars summer program. Of course, all the professors also have paid student research assistants during the school year, too. The Vassar Computer Science website can tell you a lot.
You posted this a long time ago, so sorry if this is no longer relevant.