<p>Where all can MIT students do their UROPs at? I know that MIT has amazing labs, but I was curious to know where exactly students can go (besides labs on campus). For example, I heard that Harvard students can do research at an MIT lab, so does that mean that MIT students can UROP at a Harvard lab (although, I have no idea if this is even true)? Also, can students UROP as a freshman? What about as a first semester freshman?</p>
<p>I have known people to urop as first semester freshmen. But if you want to work at a Harvard lab.... why not just go to Harvard.....</p>
<p>bump, please</p>
<p>Yes, MIT students can UROP in Harvard labs -- my lab (Harvard/Mass General) has an MIT student in it now, and a few of my friends did summer work in labs at Harvard Medical School. (EDIT: Keep in mind, though, that doing research somewhere other than MIT's campus tends to cut into the amount of time you can do research each week -- if you have a 30-minute commute to your lab, you're not going to get as much done as you would if your lab were within walking distance of your dorm.)</p>
<p>And plenty of people UROP as first semester freshmen, although plenty choose to wait until second semester, the summer, or sophomore year.</p>
<p>i think it's more helpful to think of UROP as a structure to get credit and/or money <em>from MIT</em> for research. i'm sure you could get a paid research position anywhere, but it wouldn't necessarily be funded by MIT.</p>
<p>I'm an admitted prefrosh, and though I'm very eager to start an UROP when I get to MIT. However, I do not know how to get started. Advice, suggestion?</p>
<p>What I did to get mine was look at the biology web page, email the researchers asking them for a position/including a resume, and just waited =) You can also go to the UROP listings and email from there, though that may not be dependable because the listings aren't large.</p>
<p>The only problem with applying for a UROP as a freshman is the assumed lack of experience (especially regarding having taken an MIT lab class). Of course, there are plenty of ways to demonstrate yourself as the exception (assuming you are one).</p>
<p>Bear in mind certain criteria when you search for/apply to UROP positions - where your research interests lie and if those interests match those of the professor whose lab you want to work in, location, time commitment, etc. Another note about off-campus UROPs (Harvard, etc.): these can come with limitations; for example, 7.18, the "perform your own research and write a paper on it by the end of term" class, prohibits off-campus UROPs to be used, as there is no way for MIT to monitor your research if you don't work for MIT faculty.</p>
<p>@Cuca: On the MIT website, just enter "UROP" in the search box. Once you're on the UROP page, click on "current students" and read the information. You'll also see a link to current project listings, although as others have pointed out, there are many more available UROPS than are listed on this site (you discover them by talking with faculty/departments).</p>
<p>My daughter decided to look for a UROP for spring semester of her freshman year. After about a week of looking, she found her first UROP in January. She worked on a machine vision project in Dr. Thomas Serre's group. At the time, she had zero experience in machine vision and was just about to begin taking course 6.01 (intro to EECS), so clearly experience was not a prerequisite. This summer, she found a UROP working on a plasma physics project, and since physics is her major, she's thrilled. Since she has zero experience with plasma physics, I'd say that experience was not a prerequisite for that UROP either. </p>
<p>One of the reasons we decided to pay the tuition bills and send our daughter to MIT was the incredible research opportunities. Take advantage of them, because they're not difficult to find.</p>
<p>What year do students normally take/do 7.18?</p>
<p>Junior/senior year. It might not be something you need to worry about though; I was just giving an example - in particular, 7.18 is a biology major-oriented research class. I just knew 7.18's policy about off-campus UROPs in particular, so by extension, perhaps other research-heavy classes in other majors have the same policy. But they also might not.</p>
<p>When would one start looking for a UROP if one wanted to start over IAP?</p>
<p>At least a month before the Fall semester ends.</p>
<p>My main fear is that if I ask the profs/labs I'm most interested in now (as in, over the summer) and get turned down. It's rather awkward to ask the same people again in the fall, for an UROP in the spring.</p>
<p>Well, if you ask now and they say they don't have a spot open, you could ask them to please keep you in mind for a future opening, then email in late fall/IAP asking if they now have a spring position open. You don't have to pretend you've never talked to them before. :)</p>
<p>Hm, so do UROPs limit the amount of time you can spend in the lab? Or the amount they can pay you? Just curious as to how that all works.</p>
<p>All the details can be found on the UROP website. Some basic answers are as follows, though: 1) During the school year, they suggest you not put in more than 20 hours a week for UROPs (no one should really even work that much, though); summer, 40 hrs/wk. 2) Minimum pay is $9/hr, which is what direct funding from the UROP office (with a max $1250 total per semester, I think) will pay you. If you do supervisor funding, you can get paid more than that, simply depending on what your supervisor's lab is willing to pay you.</p>
<p>Depending on where you work, time restrictions can also arise as barred access at certain times of the day and weekends. This is particularly for those who UROP in not-specifically MIT buildings.</p>
<p>I believe international students have additional restrictions on hours during the semester.</p>
<p>Note, though, that there is a technicality in that you cannot get paid for more than 40 hours of work per week in the summer (and this is for all MIT jobs, not just UROPs), but there is no limit in the number of hours you can work. ;)</p>