Niquii77

^ Those theories!

For my AP Physics B labs, we have to do everything. The thing I dread everytime we do a lab (which is about every week) are the theories. Even though they're nowhere near college level, my theories take up anywhere from 2-4 pages on notebook paper.

Descuff

Math?? Research? Daf-???????
Ok I guess I'm just really lucky then. I barely remember the research paper for 9H english by the time 10 grade start. That was about it. Now here it is again.

Funny thing is I feel more ready for English than I've ever been in High School.
I'm so gonna get an A on this paper. Let's go!!!! *Mortal Kombat theme plays*

Descuff

Let me respond to each person:
@Artsy: I strongly believe there is no purpose to write a 15 pages paper for math. That is just absurd. We are not Einstien.

@sakacar: No LAC or pre-prefessional here. Just simple 4 years engineering school.
75 pages?? I don't like that instituion at all.

@enfield: I really don't understand the purpose of a legthly essay. I understand so far that it is to teach us in high school but like they just hit us with 10-12 pages research paper with basically no pratice for 3 years + 2 years of writing simple 1-2 pages essays. That math does not add up.

@ald: I'm sure an engineering major would be alot of researches but not until the later years to be honest. but you're giving some hope. I so hate writing.

@typeakid:a paper for every class? Even math and say like Band or Orchestra???

@rspence: I did that in Regular Physis class. It wasn't really much tbh just at least a page. At least. We did like two lab report that I really enjoyed though. Even got A on both of them. I'm expecting college science classes to be a bit longer but not like 5+ pages of writing for one experiment.

ArtsyGirl13

@Descuff you will still have to take prerequisites which will probably include research papers. As for long papers we work up to them (my school puts a strong focus on writing/even has us write our common app essays as part of English junior year), freshman year I think my longest paper was five pages, around ten pages last year and I will be writing a 20-25 page paper this year. The friend that wrote the math paper chose to, honors students have to do long-term projects each year, many write research papers, he just chose to focus on math (also it ended up being a really good paper).

rspence

@Descuff, math research papers are not that uncommon...I wrote a six page paper on odd perfect numbers once, which isn't really that much compared to other mathematical literature.

Once you see the research that people have done, you will see that a five page paper isn't all that much, let alone one to two pages. I took a research methods class in HS, most students were writing 10-20 page papers on their work.

Right now at MIT, I'm currently not taking a writing course ("CI-H") but even the weekly problem sets for calculus, physics, chemistry, typically take me about 4-8 pages each to write the solutions.

enfieldacademy

odd perfect numbers don't exist (i read that once i think). how do you write a paper about something that doesn't exist 0.o?

Descuff

Odd perfect numbers??? Wait...
@enfield: He could've have discussed the possiblity that there might be an existence of an odd perfect number. And say for examples: The New World Order and UFOs. People generally believe they don't exist yet there is some theories or rumors circulating around these so called "non-existenes". And I pretty sure I mispell a word so excuse my spelling.

commanderkeen42

My paper, on public policy (nuclear reactor regulation), is for my government class, but it's for the most part a science paper.

aomame

I...can count on one hand the number of research papers i've written.

1. The huge freshman 'I-Search' project, which was like 6-8 pages at the end of the year. I'm pretty sure mine was a huge clustermess about the effects of social networking on teens. They prefaced it with a huge, "you're going to have to do this all the time in high school, so get used to it!"
2. A brief paper on nuclear medicine which was...a 3 page paper. It didn't even have to be in paper form and I got a 100 on it like what.
3. My NHD paper, which didn't even have to be a paper, which was shorter than the god-awful I-Search. Much more enjoyable to research, too.

I don't really get the emphasis on research papers, then. But I did lol at the thought that people who can't write 75+ page papers can't cut it at anything but a state flagship.

Pickwick

As an engineering major, you will be spared many worthy college classes that would enhance your ability to write, research and reason abstractly which -- while not a great thing in my view -- obviously will be good news to you. However, I can say without any equivocation that in today's world being able to write well is an absolute prerequisite to real success. Whether you are a scientist, engineer or in another numbers/science orientated profession, you must communicate with your peers, clients, employers, supporters, and if you get good, you may even want to publish -- engineers make important breakthroughs all the time, but if you can't communicate in writing someone else will be cashing in on your ideas. I simply could not enforce enough the importance of being able to write well. And really, it’s a matter of practice. You don’t have to be James Joyce – but you need to get to the point where you can write fluidly and coherently without sweating blood everytime you try. And the only way to get there is practice. So write that research paper.

Descuff

@Pickwick: very nice speech you got there. However you failed to prove the point of research papers. I can write pretty well to be honest but I feel like this research paper is tame because we get to pick our own topics approved by the teacher and it only 10 pages double spaced (in retrospect that is really at least 6 pages). I don't have much of a choice cause it gonna be worth 80%of a grading period grade sigh. I cannot afford to fail.

Sent from my LG-VM696 using CC

Pickwick

High School is no doubt full of badly conceived assignments so I won't agree or disagree with you as to yours; I wouldn't know about your particular assignment. But research papers as a genre cannot be rejected out of hand. The concept of a research paper is presenting facts or points of view, typically in support of an argument. That form of writing (albeit in many different modified forms) is something that comes in handy in life.

tangentline

I'm lucky--my gov't teacher has you write a 20 page paper only if you don't take the AP test. Other teachers in both AP gov't and regular gov't have you write a 10 page paper in the semester(s) that you take government. And regular Econ classes have to do a huge research project that is avoided by taking AP.

*As for Electrical Engineering in college and thanks to AP tests the only classes I think I'll have to write much / do research for is Sophomore English and an upper level GE class.
Masters thesis / Project? Ha. I can opt out of that with an Engineering comprehensive exam if I want to