Undergrad Thesis

[number77]

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My school has an undergrad thesis, however they don't really let you pick what you want to do. You basically tack onto a professors research. Write about it, and conduct some menial experiments. Was this yalls undergrad experience also?

 

[Mr. Tee]

Heh that's pretty much how it is here too.

 

[QofQuimica]

My school has an undergrad thesis, however they don't really let you pick what you want to do. You basically tack onto a professors research. Write about it, and conduct some menial experiments. Was this yalls undergrad experience also?

Well, to be fair, how experienced are you at conducting independent research? If you're a typical college student, you're probably basically a novice with little knowledge of the literature in your field and limited experience performing the experiments. In that case, you really can't complain that you aren't being allowed to barge into someone's lab and start taking their research in an entirely new direction. Even beginning graduate students, in my experience anyway, do not have that kind of complete independence, because it takes time to get up to speed and become something of an "expert" in your field. As you get more experience and become a senior grad student, you do get more independence and more input into designing your projects also.

 

[Jorje286]

My school has an undergrad thesis, however they don't really let you pick what you want to do. You basically tack onto a professors research. Write about it, and conduct some menial experiments. Was this yalls undergrad experience also?

Well even in that case, you can always contribute new ideas to your PI concerning the experimental design and the interpretation of the results, and that's already a big step to develop research skills.

 

[number77]

Well, to be fair, how experienced are you at conducting independent research? If you're a typical college student, you're probably basically a novice with little knowledge of the literature in your field and limited experience performing the experiments. In that case, you really can't complain that you aren't being allowed to barge into someone's lab and start taking their research in an entirely new direction. Even beginning graduate students, in my experience anyway, do not have that kind of complete independence, because it takes time to get up to speed and become something of an "expert" in your field. As you get more experience and become a senior grad student, you do get more independence and more input into designing your projects also.

I can see where your coming from, but isn't your research such a big part of the admissions process? If I don't go to a really good school and don't get tacked onto some ground breaking stuff, I'd be at a disadvantage.

 

[Shatterstar17]

You'd think so, but I met very few people in the admissions process that were truly involved in incredibly high impact research. To me, it seemed that a lot of applicants came from smaller labs, sometimes even at smaller schools, where they were able to work very closely with a PI and really have their research skills developed enough to "catch the bug."

My own personal experience was one of working in a small lab, which was doing research that I found particularly cool but was certainly not important or high impact at all. I screwed up a lot, had a project that didn't work, and had no publications, but still managed to be able to choose from a great mix of MSTPs.

If you put your best effort into it, you shouldn't be at a disadvantage compared to most applicants.

 

[QofQuimica]

I can see where your coming from, but isn't your research such a big part of the admissions process? If I don't go to a really good school and don't get tacked onto some ground breaking stuff, I'd be at a disadvantage.

I think you misunderstand what graduate schools are looking for here. No one expects you to already be a PI as a senior in college, or even to publish a paper, let alone perform groundbreaking research before you even earn your bachelor's degree! What they do want to see is some consistency in your record (i.e., that you don't just work for a couple of months washing dishes in the lab and call that significant research experience) and some evidence of your POTENTIAL to be a researcher. Potential is based on aptitude a little bit, but it's mostly based on your work ethic. If you spend two years in a lab performing experiments as part of a larger project, and your PI writes you a LOR saying that you made a significant contribution at your level of training as a college student worker, and you can coherently explain to someone else (an interviewer!) why your research was important and what role you played in it, then you'll be in great shape. 🙂

 

[RxnMan]

I can see where your coming from, but isn't your research such a big part of the admissions process? If I don't go to a really good school and don't get tacked onto some ground breaking stuff, I'd be at a disadvantage.

I worked as a research assistant for ~1.5 years before I finished my ugrad degree. While some of the stuff my PI was doing was exciting (he designed a chemical treatment that protected from lung cancer), I didn't get published, I didn't write a poster, heck, I didn't even get to do much of my own work - I got TOLD what to do. And that experience helped me get into grad school, helped me get the project I wanted, I got contacts in the medical field, and I met people who radically changed my life for the better...so really, don't worry about choosing your project. In fact, even when you get into grad school (if that's where you want to go,) don't worry about your project. Worry about who's going to be a good mentor to you and who will show you the ropes. Yeah, you won't be solving incredible problems, but that time will come, once you've learned the basics of conducting quality research.

 

[solitude]

A compelling anecdote for those undergrads who are worried about getting a publication before applying:

Craig Mello, who just won the Nobel Prize, didn't even have a publication before he graduated with a PhD from Harvard in 1990. 16 years later he is a Nobel prize winner in his 40's. Try it-pubmed Mello CC. Amazing, really.

I worked as a research assistant for ~1.5 years before I finished my ugrad degree. While some of the stuff my PI was doing was exciting (he designed a chemical treatment that protected from lung cancer), I didn't get published, I didn't write a poster, heck, I didn't even get to do much of my own work - I got TOLD what to do. And that experience helped me get into grad school, helped me get the project I wanted, I got contacts in the medical field, and I met people who radically changed my life for the better...so really, don't worry about choosing your project. In fact, even when you get into grad school (if that's where you want to go,) don't worry about your project. Worry about who's going to be a good mentor to you and who will show you the ropes. Yeah, you won't be solving incredible problems, but that time will come, once you've learned the basics of conducting quality research.

 

[Shatterstar17]

You're right. That's fraking outrageous. I've never seen a PubMed search result like that.

What's the guy gonna do for the next 30 years of his career?

A compelling anecdote for those undergrads who are worried about getting a publication before applying:

Craig Mello, who just won the Nobel Prize, didn't even have a publication before he graduated with a PhD from Harvard in 1990. 16 years later he is a Nobel prize winner in his 40's. Try it-pubmed Mello CC. Amazing, really.

 

[Alvacea]

So I was curious whether he might have gone by Mello C or such, so I tried a search. He seems to have had one publication in 1985 in PNAS, but second author. If you see the paper, the first page states that his "present address" is at Harvard. (Was he an undergrad at the U of Colorado?)

But his story's quite inspiring, nonetheless. 🙂

 

[dr.z]

Didn't have to write a thesis in undergrad.

 

[solitude]

So I was curious whether he might have gone by Mello C or such, so I tried a search. He seems to have had one publication in 1985 in PNAS, but second author. If you see the paper, the first page states that his "present address" is at Harvard. (Was he an undergrad at the U of Colorado?)

But his story's quite inspiring, nonetheless. 🙂

Good spot. Still though, no publications during a PhD from Harvard, and now a Nobelist!