Hello! I am an undergraduate student studying political science (major) and English literature (minor). I attend a liberal arts college. I am planning on attending a PhD program, but am having trouble finding opportunities for research. I am only a sophomore, but I want to get started on this early to enhance my chances of getting into a PhD program. Any suggestions?
Also, do students ever conduct their own research without a faculty adviser? How does this work?
Thanks
How are you looking for opportunities?
I am a PhD student and supervise undergraduates on a project that I manage. For over a year, all of my students have either come to me directly (they were interested in my research topics on the school’s website) or through talking to professors who recommended them to me.
I’d reach out to professors and grad students to see if they are working on any projects and need help. If you’re at an LAC that doesn’t have any graduate programs, I’d still reach out to profs but you can also reach out to grad students at other local unis.
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Also, do students ever conduct their own research without a faculty adviser?
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No.
If you are at a large research university - with graduate student teaching assistants - I suggest that you ask your TA. They’ll be able to direct you to someone who can help you find some research in your area; they’ll be familiar with most of the professors in your department and the work that they do, but also the PhD students and postdocs in your department and who might need an undergrad RA to help out.
And, regardless of what kind of college you attend, you can always ask one of your professors for help. It helps if you go on the website and find out who has shared or overlapping interest with you, first, but you can even just go to a professor you like and truts first.
Along with the suggestion above, it’s been my experience that many departments have a “research group” that basically meet several times each semester to discuss each other’s current research, get ideas, ask for assistance, and explore research opportunities. These groups usually focus on professors’ current research, but also includes students (both undergraduate and graduate level) that are interested in proposing and conducting their own research or want to help professors or others in their research just to gain that experience. It’s basically a group that meets to help each other stay on track with their research projects in hopes of not letting them remain unaccomplished or incomplete. Does your PoliSci dept have something like that? If not, maybe you can approach a professor to help get that started, which would benefit future students interested in research as well.
Usually, talking with the dept chair or your current/past professors can elicit some ideas or results - even if it’s not direct assistance with their research they can guide and assist YOU in exploring a topic you’re interested in. And no, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an undergraduate fully proposing, collecting, and conducting research all on his or her own without some assistance from graduate students and profs. Not that it can’t be done, but I’d think it quite rare - most professors and current researchers don’t do things completely on their own - they usually have at least a research partner or two (sometimes from different universities) and big projects with lots of data, which can be time consuming for which the profs don’t have adequate time to devote along with their teaching responsibilities, enlist volunteers to move that process along.
Best of luck.
Talk to a professor in your major about this and ask for ideas.
Some colleges have programs to match you up with professors.
Some do it by word of mouth.