<p>when do most people do UROPs? during their freshman/sophmore year?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>Do them, or start them? Many people keep doing UROPs through the end of their senior years.</p>
<p>It’s a little field-specific – my engineering friends seemed to start earlier than my science friends, because a lot of engineering UROPs can be hours-flexible and some work can be done at home. Science UROPs tend to involve more hours per week and must be done in the lab, so people tend to start a little later, when they’re more used to MIT.</p>
<p>I started my (bio) UROP first semester sophomore year, and I felt like I was average or maybe a little early for bio. My husband started his (aero/astro) UROP two weeks after he set foot on campus.</p>
<p>EDIT, later: Which is not to say that many or most engineering students start UROPs first semester freshman year. Just that I think the left tail for engineering UROPs is a little longer than for science – but the summer after freshman year or sometime during sophomore year is a reasonable time for anybody to start a UROP.</p>
<p>I know a lot of people who didn’t start that early at all. I’m starting my UROP now, summer after freshman year. Most of my friends didn’t start until second semester, or still haven’t had one. People do them when they feel most comfortable with the workload and the amount of time they have.</p>
<p>What major, la montagne? Any time before sophomore year seems early-ish to me, but that simply may be because bio UROPs generally want lab experience that most freshmen don’t get.</p>
<p>As for me, I’m starting my first UROP now, summer after freshman year.</p>
<p>Don’t feel that you have to start one right when you get at MIT, or first term, or IAP - some people will, many won’t. I think it’s wise to make sure classes will be fine first :)</p>
<p>A bunch of majors. Mostly physics and EECS. I’m a math major, and it’s almost impossible to get math UROPs when you’ve only taken 18.02 and 18.03, so I got a UROP at the Media Lab instead. At the Media Lab, they don’t care what you know. =P</p>
<p>It really, really varies.</p>
<p>I do tons of activities during the year, so I did a UROP over the summer after my sophomore year, and I didn’t even continue it after that.</p>
<p>Some people jump into a UROP right away and stick with it for years. Some people have a UROP for a semester, don’t like it, switch around a couple of times, try some different ones, stick with it, or not…you can do it whenever you can find something you like and think you can handle it. UROPs are like Reese’s, there no wrong way. =)</p>
<p>UROPs aren’t mandatory right?? Just for those students that would like more experience in a field…? :)</p>
<p>Thanks~</p>
<p>No, of course not. But you’ll generally need UROP or other internship experience to get into grad school or to get a science or engineering job after you graduate.</p>
<p>I started UROPing IAP of freshman year. In general, IAP is a good time to start.</p>
<p>And as has already been mentioned, starting time varies tremendously. One friend had already procured two UROPs before her first semester as a freshman was even over, and another just started - the summer before junior year.</p>
<p>You can also UROP in different fields, given you have the experience they want (which sometimes isn’t much). As montagne mentioned, the Media Lab tends to have space for people with little experience. I know of a decent amount of crossover in 6/20 or 20/7/9, etc etc.</p>
<p>I started UROPing at the beginning of junior year.</p>
<p>I started UROPing after my freshman year (during the summer). In general, I highly recommend starting in the summer or IAP so that you can work full time and orient yourself better; it’s much harder during the school year.</p>
<p>depends on what your major is and what you want to do. UROPs are available at all different levels, as are internships. i started after sophomore year, but know plenty of people who start immediatly or opt to not do one at all.</p>
<p>As a freshman, If you do the MAS program, what kind of UROP does the program expect you to get during the spring of sophomore year? Is there a min number of hours a week that they require you to dedicate to UROP because I’d like to play a varsity sport in the spring as well, and was wondering if sports + UROP is even possible :)</p>
<p>thanks…</p>
<p>If you want to UROP during the summer, 1) how difficult is it to find this, 2) how does housing work?</p>
<p>It’s usually a bit harder to find UROPs over the summer just because lots of people are looking for them. However, you’ll still probably be able to find one. What’s better is probably to start during IAP/spring and continue in during summer. For summer housing, you can opt to live in a fraternity, which is usually cheaper, a dorm, or find your own housing. You can pay it with the money you get from UROPing during the summer.</p>
<p>I, personally, had no trouble finding a summer UROP, and I have no particular skills or abilities. The trick is to start looking early; around spring break time, start finding and emailing professors whose research looks interesting, asking if they’d be interested in taking you on as a UROP for the summer. A lot of them will turn you down, but some will offer to meet with you in person to talk. As long as you’re genuinely interested in their subject, and as long as they don’t require some very specific, hard-to-get skill set, they’ll probably be willing to take you on and teach you things. (I would definitely suggest emailing people at the Media Lab; they’re REALLY chill, have tons of awesome projects, have room for all disciplines, and aren’t afraid to take on people who don’t know much.) As far as housing goes, it’s basically as frutiaspice said; you can live in a frat, a dorm, an apartment, or anywhere else that allows you to get to your UROP when you need to. I, personally, like that I can live in my dorm over the summer, because it made moving trivial, and allowed me to get settled in my new room without having the stigma of knowing that I’d be moving out in 2-3 months. (I also get to be around for Rush preparations, which is awesome. 
)</p>
<p>I think it also depends on what department you’re looking for UROPs from for the summer. Wet labs generally prefer to have students with more skills and experience and would tend to take those students over freshmen. </p>
<p>The Media Lab does offer a lot of UROPs and they almost always pay with sponsored funding. However, I didn’t have that great of an experience with a Media Lab UROP. I think it’s mainly because I prefer wet labs. However, that’s the point of UROPs, to explore different things and figure out what you enjoy doing :]</p>
<p>For summer housing, it’s definitely more convenient to live in a dorm since you don’t have to lug your stuff everywhere. However, I’d like to note that fraternity/ILG housing is around a couple hundred dollars cheaper (depending on the fraternity/ILG). And even if you don’t live in your dorm over the summer, you can still help out with REX (I’m assuming this is what la montagne meant by Rush, unless it’s the actual Fraternity Rush which wouldn’t make as much sense). I know a couple people who are doing this for Next House.</p>
<p>whats a wet lab?</p>
<p>Working with chemicals/biological stuff/etc. It does tend to be a bit more difficult, but not impossible - I, for one, have no lab experience but found my summer UROP without too much of a problem. (I did get extremely lucky with it, though - but many others have done similar things. It takes time and emails and being able to get through many replies of “come back when you have more experience”.)</p>