FAQ's
How do you get started if you want to do undergraduate research?
- Perusing the information on this website is a good way to start. Another good way is to ask one of your professors about doing research with him or her. If you find a topic in one of your classes that interests you as a potential research area, go ahead and inquire with the professor.
What formats are available for doing undergraduate research? Can you do your own research study, or do you have to work with a professor?
- There are generally two approaches:
One is to conduct your own research project under the mentorship of a faculty member. Potentially, you could design a project "from the ground up." This would include designing a questionnaire or research procedure, getting human subjects approval (if necessary), gathering and analyzing your data, and writing up a final report. This may sound a bit daunting, but your faculty advisor would be there to help. Sometimes a faculty member will include you as part of a team of graduate and undergraduate students that will conduct a large project. A lot of the planning might be done collaboratively, but then you would take responsibility for analyzing the data on one small part of the large study and writing up the part that you analyzed.
A second way to get involved in research as an undergraduate is to work as a research assistant for a professor (or for a graduate student working with a professor). Essentially, you would be assigned tasks by the professor (such as making phone calls or typing in data) that are integral to the overall project, although you are not the primary designer of the study.
Different professors will have different preferences for how they like to include students, and professors will also differ term-to-term in whether they have research funds available (and of what type). Only through discussion with one or more faculty members will you be able to find the kind of research role that suits your goals. If you are accepted into some kind of special program such as the McNair Scholars (see link elsewhere on this website for the McNair program), the program will also provide some structure to your efforts.
How many hours/how much time does it take?
- In most cases, students will work on their research for course credit (see section of this website on course-credit options within the College of Human Sciences). Other students, however, may be paid for doing research (if, for example, their faculty mentor has a research grant that provides for funding of research assistants). If you work for pay, you will of course need to negotiate your time schedule when you begin the job. When doing research for course credit, you can estimate your time commitment based on the amount of time you would devote to a "regular" class. Students will typically sign up for 3 hours' research credit per semester. During a regular semester (Fall or Spring), 3 credits represent the equivalent of 3 hours' time in the classroom, but you also have to allow for studying and work outside the classroom. You may find yourself putting in 10 hours a week on your project, give or take. For students conducting their own studies, the total time allocation ultimately will probably come down to how much time is required to accomplish all the tasks necessary to complete the project.
How can you get information on graduate programs at other schools?
- You can click here to get a listing of member universities in the Board on Human Sciences. You can then click on the name of a given university to be taken automatically to the home page of that university's human sciences (or equivalent) college. From there, you can search departments and particular graduate programs.
How can you find out what kind of research a professor is doing?
- Elsewhere on this website, there are clickable links to pages that list faculty members' research interests, by department.
How do you get to be a McNair scholar?
- Click here to visit the McNair website.