Would research within a course count as research experience?

[BodegaCat]

In a microbiology course that I've taken, we were given complete freedom in setting up an at-home experiment to investigate fermentation in food. There weren't any instructions, so each student was responsible for choosing the hypothesis, the design, the materials, ensuring safety, collecting data, and choosing literature from the beginning. I wrote an 11-page paper on the effects of ash content in flour on baked goods' microbiome. I received academic credit for completion, of course.

Since it was a self-designed experiment, can I count this as a research experience on AADSAS and mark it as "compensated with academic credit"? If so, what should the title of this experience be -- the title of the paper or something else?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Ryxndek]

I’m not sure you can count this as specifically research. I also took a biology lab course that was a semester long, developed and tested a hypothesis, and presented a poster and submitted a paper for grading as well as receiving credit. However I didn’t count this as research because it wasn’t directed by a PI but a graduate student in the course and didn’t lead to any publications/presentations at any academic conferences because the course wasn’t designed in that way.

There are specific courses that your university might offer where you can perform academic research under a post-doc or a PI that can be completed for academic credit that I would say would count as research experience. But I wouldn’t count a class like this as true research experience in my honest opinion.

Maybe others could shed some light on what they think, but I personally think you’d be stretching this if you’re counting it as real academic research when it doesn’t seem like it truly is. It certainly is a course designed to dip your toes into what research could be.

Did you work directly with a PI on this topic? Or did you work in a group with a grad student helping guide you? What is the title of the course? If it has research in the title then you might be able to get away with it.
At my university the specific academic research courses were titled “directed research”, the course I took wasn’t titled research in any way.

 

[BodegaCat]

I’m not sure you can count this as specifically research. I also took a biology lab course that was a semester long, developed and tested a hypothesis, and presented a poster and submitted a paper for grading as well as receiving credit. However I didn’t count this as research because it wasn’t directed by a PI but a graduate student in the course and didn’t lead to any publications/presentations at any academic conferences because the course wasn’t designed in that way.

There are specific courses that your university might offer where you can perform academic research under a post-doc or a PI that can be completed for academic credit that I would say would count as research experience. But I wouldn’t count a class like this as true research experience in my honest opinion.

Maybe others could shed some light on what they think, but I personally think you’d be stretching this if you’re counting it as real academic research when it doesn’t seem like it truly is. It certainly is a course designed to dip your toes into what research could be.

Did you work directly with a PI on this topic? Or did you work in a group with a grad student helping guide you? What is the title of the course? If it has research in the title then you might be able to get away with it.
At my university the specific academic research courses were titled “directed research”, the course I took wasn’t titled research in any way.

Ah, I see. Thought it might be worth asking because it's mostly independent.

It's an "Introduction to Microbiology" course. The lab portion was worth 30% and overseen by the professor herself. Some graduate students were available for troubleshooting or writing assistance, if needed. The experiments were done individually, but the professor would meet with us all once a week for general notes on academic writing (e.g., how to organize the results section, how to style/add titles to images, etc) or Q&A.

 

[Ryxndek]

Ah, I see. Thought it might be worth asking because it's mostly independent.

It's an "Introduction to Microbiology" course. The lab portion was worth 30% and overseen by the professor herself. Some graduate students were available for troubleshooting or writing assistance, if needed. The experiments were done individually, but the professor would meet with us all once a week for general notes on academic writing (e.g., how to organize the results section, how to style/add titles to images, etc) or Q&A.

I’m still unsure you could count this as an academic research course. It’s possible you could reach out to your schools pre-health student center and they may be able to help you on if it would count or not. But based on my experience and how I filled out my application, I didn’t include my course as research which was similar in format to yours.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Not really. Only if it is an independent study.