<p>Next semester, I am taking a course called Intro to Research in Molecular Biology. The course first prepares us for research, and then each students begins his or her research project on nucleotide analysis. We even have the opportunity to publish our sequence.</p>
<p>My question is that can I list that as research experience, even if I don't publish?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>You needn’t publish results for something to count as research, but I think this wouldn’t be considered a research experience since it was more like an in-class project than actual independent research. But the class sounds like a nice introduction to research.</p>
<p>Research would be more involved and last longer. Full time (40 hr/wk) summer program lasting 12 weeks or more. A year or more involvement with a single lab where you volunteer more than just a few hours each week. (As an example, D2 worked ~4-12 hours/week in her research lab.) A senior research thesis.</p>
<p>At some schools, you can earn credits for doing research while working on a independent project (i.e. senior thesis). Even though you would be recieving credits for that, it would still count as a research.</p>
<p>DS did his senior project for two semesters. There was no class and he worked like a member in his research group. I have the impression that he was expected to commit about 10 to 12 hours in the lab.
He likely committed 12 hours per week. Any student who wants to graduate with a BS needs to do this for 2 semesters and write/presents the paper at the end. If a student wants BA only, he only needs to do this for one semester and could choose to write a survey-like paper rather than becoming a member in a lab.
He did list this experience as research when he applied to med school.</p>
<p>Some students do cut corners for the time commitment. In DS 's gap year, he worked in another lab. A student worked on her senior project. But she likely spent a half of required hours because she either took too many classes or had been involved with too many must-have premed ECs. DS was really upset about this (he was kind of her junior mentor assigned by PI) even though PI himself did not care very much. I think it was because when she did not have accumulated enough data, it is sort of DS’s responsibilities to help her out.</p>