Siemens Competition participation

warbrain
Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:47:43 +0000

Honestly, I think doing research in high school is kind of overrated. I have a lot of friends who did research in high school, and very few of them are still on track to go to grad school in the field they did research in. In fact, one of my friends was Intel STS finalist with a project in chemistry, but once he got to college, he didn’t take a single chemistry course until sophomore year, and no longer has any interest in it anymore. For the most part, I don’t get the impression that these projects are that serious.

I agree with frazzled though that if your son is not able to find a mentor, that he should still do a lot of reading of papers, since that will be pretty helpful later on. Other options include studying for the USA Physics or Chemistry Olympiads, or taking or auditing courses at a local university. The latter might also be a way to get the attention of a professor who you weren’t able to catch the attention of through e-mail.