I'm trying to get a research position on campus (help out in a lab as an undergrad), and I was wondering how I would go about doing this? Any help would be SUPER appreciated!
I'm in Computer Science if that helps.
Posted Jul 28, 2012, 1:21 AM UTC
talk to a professor doing research in a field that you are interested in. just walk right up and ask them if they have any opportunities for you in their lab. its easier to do in the engineering field, which i am doing, but cs has its opportunities.
For some reason there aren't a lot of undergraduate researchers here so it might be hard to find. The best way is to find and contact a graduate student whose work you find interesting. Most will bring you on if they like you, although it may not be paid. There are usually poster sessions in where you can attend and see who is working on what but you could also just ask.
Note im also in CS
Awesome! Any where I could find contact info for grad students in CS?
I don't want to wait to see if RES decides to post this, so I'm doing it without it. I'll delete the other comment if it goes through.
The general consensus here is that you should figure out what you're interested in or what you want to do and find a someone who does that. That's good, but there's some things that you should be aware of.
Know who they are and what areas they're interested in. Don't ask to do cryptography work with someone who obviously doesn't do anything that has to do with that except for using ssl or some other kind of boxed encryption. Also, please make sure you refer to them by the correct gender. It makes it seem like you're actually trying, otherwise you'll probably get ignored (or something similar).
If you email professors, and you're email is fine and sensible, try sending it again (or go to their office hours). Professors get thousands of emails a day (not even kidding), so yours probably got lost. Along those lines, make sure you made the subject line something that can be interpreted quickly and easily to help separate you from the other spam.
You probably won't be paid, but you might. There are some that have funding for just this purpose. The some people that won't want to make sure that you're in it for the experience first. Later on you might get paid, depending on if they have funding and how well you've been performing. Also, don't bring this up too quickly. At least wait a quarter, unless it really means a lot to you (you need this job or else you can't stay in school) then tell them why.
Age of project. Remember that projects on the website might be really old, and not reflect that the professor is doing. You can look at the last publication or w/e for that and see if it's within the last few years. But, that shouldn't be be a huge issue if you ask about it. Who knows, maybe they will even resuscitate that project for you.
You will not be given high stakes work in the beginning. You need to earn their trust first before they will release the reins and let you do your own thing. Many times this work is stuff that the other grad students don't want to do. Or something that isn't mission critical to something that is coming up. Please don't feel bad about this, they're taking a risk by taking you on and having you represent them.
Can you commit to the work you've said that you're going to do. Sometimes you are given work that will make or break some other person's research. They're probably counting on finishing on some schedule. Similarly, don't overstate your abilities. Did you say that you know how to program in ____? Even if you don't quite have the grasp of it, make sure you do by the time you're supposed to start, or else tell them truthfully, or else they can't properly plan your project, which brings me to my next point.
Professors are managers. Truthfully, most of them don't do too much research anymore. If they are, they are usually superficially involved (sometimes more involved in writing papers, but that's another story). Sure some might be. But, as far as I've seen, they're in the minority. The grad students are the ones in the trenches. So like diedthreetimes said, you're going to be working with them, so try asking them, but usually the professor will have the ultimate say (if they don't think that the grad student should take on a mentor role at this point or take on another student).
So, what are you interested in doing?
Thanks for the awesome reply! Right, now I don't know what I want to do. I just want to do a little more figuring things out.
That's fine that you don't know what you want to do. Few people do. How far into your degree are you? What do you like to do so far? How about what are you willing to do? Are you willing to learn/able to learn quickly?
Mind a professor whose work interests you, go to their office hours, talk to them about it, ask if you can work with them.
You can worry about the 199 units, official positions or anything else later.
Hey, I work in a bio research lab, we usually fiddle around with different programs. Let me know if you're interested so I can tell you who I work with.
Go to the UROP offices in student services 2, research professors that do things that interest you and they will lead you in the right direction! Or at least what you want to research. Good luck!
Research all of the professors, find one with research you're interested it, and then RESEARCH THE HELL OUT OF THAT PROFESSOR. The pickier professors will really appreciate if you know about their research. Make sure to have questions or something to bring up if they ask you about what you're interested in particular. Being prepared helps!
Agreed. Being prepared helps.
EDIT: so apparently this did go through, so I'm removing redundancy with the newer post ... whenever RES decides to actually post it.
Also some people have varying preferences on GPA. I hear that psychology is really hard (and competitive), but some places figure that because you have the initiative to want to do undergrad research, you should do fine.
Quentinz is correct that UROP is a good venue to try to apply to different people's projects, but keep this in mind. Graduate students (and professors) submit projects to UROP. Then you go to to UROP (somehow, i've never done this) and choose from the list of submitted projects and apply to some. Then the grad stuent (or professor) will select one or two of the people that applied to work on a project. Getting a position tends to be much more flexible if you go directly to a professor. You both can apply for urop funding after and/or they might have grants to help fund your project.
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Note that when you are looking for research in a computer science related field that there are many different interpretations of this. There are a lot of different fields for CS work (algorithms, AI, networks, etc), Informatics work (how people react with machines and how tech influences our lives), and IT work tangentially related to other fields (designing databases and systems for another major-specific project to help other research goals). UROP is your friend, as is SURP and SURF-IT for shorter summer projects. If you have any more questions, feel free to PM.
i did this. i got into grad school back at UCI after having a 2.7 GPA and many F's
email professor, say you want to talk in office hour about helping with reserach, show up and say "I want to help with your research"
do your homework and understand what they do. they will be flattered
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Look at the UCI webpages for Comp Sci professors and then see if they do research then you just email them introducing yourself and tell them you're interested in "____" and if possible, could you come into their office and talk more about a position in research. From personal experience, professors take weeks to get back to you so good luck!
Does anyone knows that if you want a research position, the professor somewhat expects you to go to grad school? I feel that this is the general case cause most people I know are going to grad school who are in research.
Unfortunate for me, I want a research position, but I'm not planning for grad school. Also, my grades are mediocre as well. If I tell them "I'm interested in your research, are there any openings?" and if they pop out the grad school question and I reply with no, I feel they will deny my request. I'm not quite sure about the other schools but I feel engineering is like that.
Find a professor that's doing something you're interested in, and e-mail him/her. That's how I ended up securing a research position with Dr. Shaka.