I am a rising freshman, about to compete in the high school science fair circuit. What is your advice on how to come up with a meaningful and competitive engineering topic?

Hey guys, during the last school year, I have wanted to publish a research paper about AI over the summer, but to publish in something like arxiv, I need to get some kind of endorsement, so how do get someone who is very experienced in AI(such as a CS or AI professor) to at least give me some kind of validation when publishing my paper?

Korea is known for its K-pop, dramas, and movies. Though I am thankful that many people think positively of the country I live in, I came to realize that people don't know how much 'education' is torturing students in Korea. < Hagwons> Heard of 'Hagwons'? They are specialized, private for-profit institutes that students go after school, and students stay in there for time ranging from 50 minutes to 6 hours. There are about 89000 hagwons in Korea, and most likely you will see them everywhere beside residential homes. Basically, hagwon is a mini school. But the things that students are taught go beyond what public schools teach; for example, there are many many middle schoolers who finished the highschool curriculum, all thanks to hagwons. At first glance, hagwons might not look bad. But please read on. Those who are sent to hagwons were probably forced by his/her parent. From the students I have met, all of them hated going to hagwons. But their parents forced them anyways. Even if you are passionate about learning, you probably won't want to go to hagwons. A highschoool student's schedule might look like this: after school, go to english, math, Korean literature, and Science hagwon, go home, do hagwon and school hw until 2AM, sleep for less than 4 hours. Nobody, nobody likes this... But the students have to adapt to this forcing, creativeless education. <Parent & Education> Hagwons are so normalized in Korea, most parents send their child to at least one hagwon. They think that it for their children to send them to hagwons. I would say many parents in Korea, and other Asian countries have a tendency to be jealous; they have hightened awarness about others. This is actually proven in a study; 10 Korean and American parents were scanned by FMRI. They were to engage in a small game, where either, they were given points or the other player lost points. For Korean parents, their reward part of the brain was activated when the other lost points. For the American parents, they felt rewarded when they themselves got more points. So basically, Korean parents feel better when Others suffer, get sad when Others are praised. This is very much shown in how parents treat their child; they see them as mere products to show off, a mean of comparison rather than someone to love. I mean parents do love their child, but their jealousy takes control of them time to time.

I am going to high school in August, and I have heard that taking notes is essential. How do you guys take notes?

Most of my posts here have been about psychology and mental health, showing that I most likely want to do that in college. I want to study neuroscience in college because it is close to psychology and has a lot of med school prerequisites in its coursework already (less added work). However, for most extracurriculars, I plan for it to be around psychology, because I am most passionate about that. But, I read that you should have your extracurriculars around the degree you want to pursue. Do you think having psychology extracurriculars will limit my chances of getting into a top college when I want to have a neuroscience degree?