<p>Getting a job as a research assistant is way easy. I literally got my job after going up to a professor after a lecture I liked, telling her that I liked it, and having her ask me, “Would you be interested in a job as a research assistant with one of my graduate students?”
This happens more often than you’d think. There are also research assistantship job fairs, advertised on campus, and several websites through the University that post research positions- frogs.uchicago.edu is one of them. There are several labs that will hire first year students, but many (especially in the sciences or in economics) will want some basic coursework in the field before beginning, so you may need to wait until second year to become involved in a lab.
@Machiavelli- there’s no formal way of requesting a certain house. You might try writing “I would like to live in Woodward House” (Woodward is the house you may be thinking of in Max P) on the “comments” section of your housing form, but that’s no guarantee you’ll be placed there. If you’re not placed there, you probably won’t have any problem hanging out with him, though, so don’t worry!</p>