enemyunit

I'm applying to College of Engineering for Electrical Engineering and I was wondering how easy/hard it is to get a research opportunity during the freshman year.

1. Is it possible to get a research position at all during freshman year?

2. Is it simply a matter of approaching/emailing professor X about his research project that you would be interested in?

3. If getting a research position is possible freshman year, is any extensive prior knowledge required? (I don't think incoming freshmen would know that much haha)
if yes, then how do you get this knowledge??? self study? or courses?

4. If getting a research position is not possible (or very likely) in freshmen year, what year can a student stand a reasonable chance of getting one?

5. Also, what is the situation for freshmen in regards to internships and co-ops?

Please let me know!! thanks in advance

j89

1. Yes, you can get a research opportunity pretty easily. Either Apply for UROP or email a bunch of professors.

2. Yes. Or through UROP again.

3. They will usually teach you what you need to know. Some of these are self study and some professors will ask you to take a certain course (depending on subject of research, professor, etc.)

4. ^

5. It is really difficult to get internships or coops [as in a hired company work] as a freshman. Companies usually want to see how well you perform in college till sophomore year before hiring.

Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program | The University of Michigan
[there is an engineering section with a lot of electrical engineering research positions available]

*just a note on UROP. Some people absolutely hate UROP and some love it. Depends on the project you obtain once you're admitted.

blackpen2008

and UROP has those nightly meetings also

enemyunit

sweet, thanks guys!

how hard is it to get into UROP as a freshman?

yosup

Is it easy for CS majors in the CoE to do research? Can we get internships in our sophomore year easily?

Sorry for kinda jacking this thread!! Every thread I make get's pwned by the prospective students' "I forgot to blah blah blah, will I get rejected?" threads =[

j89

Its pretty easy to get in if you apply on time and you have some sort of interest. CS majors also have a pretty easy time getting research through the same methods mentioned above. Internships are still difficult to obtain sophomore year for the average student; however, its quite possible.

enemyunit

hahaha yosup, i saw one of your threads xD it's all good

tetrahedr0n

Not easily, no. Nothing is easy. But it's very doable. There's a ton of opportunities for CS students and by your sophomore year you'll be ready to take on almost any internship.

svtcobra

(in regards to original topic)

If you join urop, you look for a project in an online guide a few weeks into the year, and then go to the urop office to get contact information. You just send an email asking for an interview. The project description will tell you what you need to know (most say nothing) and what year you need to be (almost all are open to freshmen, just a handful are sophomore only).

Your research sponsor/supervisor may make you do a little extra reading on the topic, but you generally don't need to know anything going in.

enemyunit

Haha, thanks svtcobra that clears it up even more

Could you describe the actual research that would be getting done? Is it hands-on, etc. if possible, do you know what they do for electrical engineering, or any other type?

thanks again

svtcobra

I'm actually in a biomed project, not engineering. But virtually all projects will involve hands-on experience. There is a "student tasks" section of the description that says what you will be doing. You can tell if it will be hands on (for example, one project said you would be conducting phone surveys, so you could tell it wasn't really hands-on work. Another (mine ) said that the student would be culturing and genetically modifying embryonic stem cells. aka hands-on.)

I looked at a few engineering projects as well, and all of them seemed like real work, not just surveys and stuff. Unfortunately I can't give you any real info on engineering projects.

enemyunit

ohh, okay that's really good. Biomed sounds really interesting btw, I'm applying to other schools for biology. I still haven't made up my mind between electrical engineering and biology...but w/e, that answered my question - thanks!

tetrahedr0n

Which areas in electrical engineering are you interested in doing research in?

enemyunit

probably electronics-related, like microprocessors, etc. But I will look into wireless too if I can handle the intense math..