Homelss Intel semi-finalist

ecouter11
Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:33:41 +0000

As a high school student that has done much work in the lab, I can tell you that it is usually very difficult to find mentors. I had to call and email numerous people and met with several before I found someone willing to work with me.
Then, I was given about 6 or 7 scientific papers, which I had to read myself and find ideas for projects from. I came up with around 5, most of which were impractical. I then discussed with the Prof my ideas and we settled on something that was more feasible; an undergraduate level project. I then had to write a 5 page proposal, with citations and materials/methods for ISEF (Team Canada) which i applied to. Granted, it’s not exactly the same as Intel, but they’re run by the same organization.

Anyway, I will write my own research report and carry out my own experiments. The grad student who is ‘mentoring’ me is essentially showing me techniques and reading over my report. Yes, my project is part of her project, but the original ideas came from me.

I strongly agree with sniperas, science competitions are among the best competitions out there. Those who generalize about the competitors are terribly wrong; for sure- you will have a few bad apples, but most of the contestants do their own reading, run their own experiments and so forth. I’m doing biochem research, but I know people who’ve done physics and chemistry research (and gotten into intel) and everyone did their own work…