EE and a formal research conducted at college are definitely different.
In my school EE on maths in pretty uncommon, after a bit of searching online I figured out that it’s mainly about applying maths in real life situation, examples include investigating the trajectory when playing football or working on prime numbers.
But college level maths research would be much more advanced. I was thinking maybe I could get to know about research through EE and then move to more advanced topics so that I have a better shot at the US college admissions.