Learn more on how to get started in research
Many students are engaged in undergraduate research. Just ask around in your courses who is doing research and then ask with whom they do research, what is their research about, what have been their experiences so far. Research active students could connect you to their faculty mentors.
Often research active students are student club members and can connect you to research.
There are courses within most majors that specifically introduce you to research or prepare you for research within that discipline. In addition, some major-specific courses contain a research element or research-like experiences. These courses may be required core courses or elective courses.
- You can ask your department principle undergraduate advisor or your department chair which courses in your program or at your college introduce students to research.
- Faculty teaching such courses typically have an active research group. So, when you take such a course and you like it, you can ask the faculty teaching that course about their research group and other research opportunities, and maybe you will join their lab.
- You can also find your degree program in the University catalogue and search for courses in your degree program that include “research” in their course title or course description and do not require department or instructor consent to enroll. You can verify through the schedule of classes whether these courses are offered in the current term.
- You may come across independent study courses, but these are for students who already have a research mentor and you will be able to enroll in those with faculty permission once you have identified a faculty mentor.
Many faculty members lead an active research group. You can contact research-active faculty in your department and explore whether you could join their research group.
- Visit your department’s website.
- Browse the faculty listed and their research interests.
- Contact the faculty whose research sounds appealing to you. It may help to first take a course with the faculty in whose research you are interested to create a connection.
Every year the University holds this symposium during the Spring term (last week of February or first week of March). The Symposium is open to all students. Check here for the specific date and program. You can just come by and meet your peers at their posters or listen to their talks and they can connect you to their faculty mentors.
There are several research-focused programs and centers for undergraduate students on our campus. These include CREST CATSUS (Science Technology, Engineering, and Math), U-RISE (Biomedical Sciences - PhD), LSAMP (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and Mellon Mays Program (Humanities and selected Social Sciences- PhD).
There are numerous major universities and federal agencies as well as private foundations that offer competitive summer research opportunities. Many of them seek to admit students from marginalized groups. Some programs offer first-time research experiences for undergraduate students. Key features of summer research programs include:
- Faculty mentored research
- Professional developmental programs
- Extracurricular activities
- Paid housing and travel support
- A stipend
- Waivers/special consideration for future for PhD applications.
There are several ways to find summer research opportunities.
- Go to the websites of schools that you are interested in and search within the school’s search engine with the search terms “undergraduate summer research” and “program” or “internship”.
- Perform a wide search through your preferred browser. Just enter the search term “undergraduate summer research” and “program” or “internship” and your field of interest and check out the various programs that pop up.
- Go to the websites of the major federal agencies that support research (NIH, NSF, NASA, USDA, etc.) and search within their search engines for “undergraduate summer research” .
- Ask your department chair and faculty for advice on finding private institutions that offer summer research programs.
- Attend a summer research program recruitment session. Your professors and student clubs often send out information about such events and the Undergraduate Research Hub disseminates this information too.