<p>My dad is a college professor and he's offering me a job (unpaid) as his research assistant for a project. Would colleges look down on this simply because he's my dad, see it as making use of an opportunity that's thrown my way, or a mix of both? Would it be "better" to work under one of his colleagues, or perhaps not explicitly mention his name on my college applications?</p>
<p>Edit: I'm currently a high school junior.</p>
<p>I think it depends upon your experience level. If you are a senior in high school, and use this as a way to learn about research, and your resume reflects what you learned and did (and not who was your supervisor), then you’ll be fine. It’s important to get experience when you have those opportunities.
If you are a senior in college, and this is your first research position, it may be viewed with a more critical eye.
Either way, you might enjoy working directly with someone other than a parent. But if that’s not possible, get the experience and make the most of it.</p>
<p>If the choice is between working for your dad on a research project or flipping burgers at McDonalds, I would say working for your dad would be better. On the other hand, if you can work on a research project for another professor (one of his colleagues) or get a job at a major company crunching data or working on some sort of project, that would probably be best.</p>