zenythz

Many of those who get accepted into good science/math schools such as UCB, Duke, or Johns Hopkins have some sort of research done (usually over a summer).

How exactly does one go about getting started with official research? Where do you go to get a research program set up? Do you just walk up to a local college and tell them you are interested in research for the summer?

Those of you who have done research over a summer: will you please explain how exactly you get started?

ethancc2

It's good to start these things early... a few months before summer actually begins. Some programs have deadlines as early as January for summer research.

Some universities have summer research programs for high school students: Stanford CCIS program, UChicago RIBS program, COSMOS, etc... Applications start in Spring and some cost money while others pay you.

The easiest method is to just ask people you know, like friends, family, relatives, etc. They can ask around if other co-workers are willing to take summer interns or recommend summer research programs to apply to.

The brute force method, which I don't really support, would be do find email lists of all the researchers in a university and send out mass emails with your c.v. and cover letter. Chances of this succeeding can be slim and some find this insulting.

Of course, all high schools have resources our counselors that know of summer programs and research opportunities. It's good to utilize these since they're free and convenient.

tastyb33f

I'm doing research at UCLA over this summer, but it's usually not as simple as going up to a local college and telling them you want to do research. First of all, prepare a CV or resume of sorts - important information is your name, contact info, current school, your field of study, intended year of graduation, RELEVANT classes you've taken (so if you're doing science-related research, list off all the math, chem, bio, physics, stats, etc.), and why you're interested in doing research. This also works much better if you contact faculty directly.

Also, don't just shotgun email a ton of faculty and do research just for the sake of doing research or padding your resume. Look at all the project descriptions related to the faculty you're interested in and email those faculty. You should LEARN something from the experience, so it's better to be doing research in a project that actually interests you. That way, when you email the faculty, you can tell him/her ("I noticed that your project is on ___________ and I found it interesting because ____________") about why you're interested in their specific project. Otherwise, they really have no reason to take you in their lab.

For example, I'm interested in the Human Microbiome Project and high-throughput genomic sequencing, so I did a lot of searching and emailing at various schools (all in California, but that was just my personal preference) to see if there were any faculty who were working on any project relevant to the human microbiome. I found a few all over the state, and now here I am at UCLA, doing some pretty cutting-edge research and, sometimes, dying in the occasionally ridiculous heat (I miss The Bay so much right now).

ethancc2

Asking people you know can never hurt,

I was able to do research this summer by asking my aunt. She works in the pharmacy at Stanford Hospital and occasionally completes/approves prescriptions for doctors/researchers. After finding out about my interest in summer research she asked a few doctors who also ran research labs. She recommended a few to me and said I just needed to send them my c.v. and a cover letter and he'll arrange a time to talk over the phone.

I currently do research at Stanford's Center for Clinical Sciences Research where I'm working with a medical fellow to investigate immune responses to graft-versus-host-disease of leukemia patients that have undergone bone marrow transplants.

^^tastyb33f:
your lab isn't air-conditioned? plus the air in the bay is hazy and full of smoke/ash from the wildfires.