Research or Research Research

[TNUVO]

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Hey all,

So my college has a J-term - a chance to take fun, short classes, or engage in professors research. Last year, I enrolled in an organic chemistry lab working with fragment based ligand design, with approximately 130-150 hours over the month. I loved it, and planned to continue the research this J-term, but because of financial reasons, have to work instead.

Most of the people I read about have multiple hundreds of hours and publications... Does my research experience really amount to anything significant? Just another case of imposter syndrome? I know that because it involved a professor’s work, it’s real research, but I just can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t comparable to people’s research with publications.

 

[LizzyM]

What was your role? Did you do rote activities, or did you have a role in the design of a study and/or a hand in the analysis and write up of findings? While you haven't hit the ultimate: publication of the work, you may be given "credit" for being engaged in hypothesis testing, if you were, and at the very least you will be given credit for having been in a laboratory environment even if your role was "housekeeping", plating, etc with no engagement at the intellectual level.

 

[TNUVO]

What was your role? Did you do rote activities, or did you have a role in the design of a study and/or a hand in the analysis and write up of findings? While you haven't hit the ultimate: publication of the work, you may be given "credit" for being engaged in hypothesis testing, if you were, and at the very least you will be given credit for having been in a laboratory environment even if your role was "housekeeping", plating, etc with no engagement at the intellectual level.

A computational scan was performed on a transcriptional binding site of malarial DNA to produce structures of interest. As students, we had to choose a structure and run it with additional functional groups in the software to determine which had the highest affinity. We then had to find literature on how to synthesize the molecule, and perform it ourselves. Probably more than you care to know, but all of this was very independent of each other and the prof - who essentially gave us free reign and guidance only when necessary. We had to submit a report to the prof, but no presentation was ever made.

 

[Moko]

So my college has a J-term - a chance to take fun, short classes, or engage in professors research. Last year, I enrolled in an organic chemistry lab working with fragment based ligand design, with approximately 130-150 hours over the month. I loved it, and planned to continue the research this J-term, but because of financial reasons, have to work instead.
Most of the people I read about have multiple hundreds of hours and publications... Does my research experience really amount to anything significant? Just another case of imposter syndrome? I know that because it involved a professor’s work, it’s real research, but I just can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t comparable to people’s research with publications.

Will this be your only research experience? Are you aiming for research-heavy schools? If the answer to these questions are 'yes', then 150 hours (and just one month of research experience) is indeed very low.

Research is just one factor that's considered in the admissions process though, and even at research-heavy schools, there are candidates who get admitted due to the sheer strength of the rest of their application.