my thoughts on summer research

Jun '24 (edited) • Research & Science Fair

originally posted this on r/a2c but the mods deleted my post LOL; anyway here it is:

Imagine you're a student really interested in astrophysics. You've taken the hardest science and math classes your school offers, and you spend your free time reading about black holes and learning coding languages to analyze data from telescopes. You're passionate about the subject and want to do some real research in the field this summer.

But, when you go scrolling on a2c looking for advice, you stumble upon dozens of posts about how science research for high schoolers is only possible if you have connections or have parents working in research. You start to feel discouraged and wonder if it's even worth pursuing.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it is absolutely possible to do science research this summer, even without connections or parents in the field. When I was in high school, I did research every summer, and I found it to be the most rewarding and exciting experience. Many of the skills I learned transfer over to my college courses—more so than olympiads or bowls (which I was not super active in, but did briefly)—and, for all you college application enthusiasts out there, it's a great resume booster.

Here's a brief overview of what my summers looked like: Summer after 8th grade: worked on an independent research project in computational pathology, later presented at Broadcom MASTERS and qualified to ISEF my freshman year Summer after 9th grade (COVID): worked on an independent research project in synthetic biology, won me 3rd Grand Award at ISEF in Bioengineering Summer after 10th grade: continued my independent project from the year before, this summer working under a mentor (project later won 1st place at ISEF), and also worked at my local lab simultaneously (was 3rd and 5th author on two research papers) Summer after 11th grade: Attended the Research Science Institute (RSI) program at MIT Summer after 12th grade: Joined a new lab at Harvard (where I go to school now)

If you have no idea what any of these things mean, don't worry! I'll break it down for you.

Independent research projects: These are projects that you design and carry out on your own, without a mentor. This is a great way to explore your interests and develop your critical thinking and problem-solving skills. I've found that I was able to rapidly develop my skills in coding and data analysis from independent projects. It is really hard to find mentors/join a lab at a young age, so this is the route I recommend for younger students.
Mentored research projects: Once you've developed some skills and can demonstrate that you're capable of conducting some aspects of research, you can start looking for mentors or reaching out to labs. This can be intimidating, but there are many resources and tips online on how to do this effectively. The strategy that I used was cold emailing. Many students will email a few professors, but then give up if they don't get a response. Persistence is key! I've heard from friends and other students who emailed upwards of 100 experts before they scored a position! Also - please remember, as a high school student, you are not entitled to or owed a research position. Be professional and respectful in your emails and understand that labs have limited space and resources. Oftentimes, labs will want to get undergrads or grad students from their own institution (especially schools like Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc.) so consider emailing labs at smaller schools or schools in your area. This will often lead to a more rewarding experience as you can continue working during the school year and visit in person if you are doing wet lab work. Also, don't be afraid to reach out to labs in different fields or disciplines. You never know what kind of interesting research you might end up doing! When we're young (heck, I'm still young as just a rising sophomore in college), our research interests are very malleable. You might think you love astro, but end up totally obsessed with comp bio. Keep an open mind and be eager to learn!
Summer programs: There are many amazing summer programs out there that offer high school students the opportunity to conduct research under the guidance of experienced mentors. However, beware! Some programs may be expensive and not credible. I would recommend sticking to programs that have a formal affiliation with an institution, especially residential programs where you are bound to be in-person. Some online programs will say that you will get 2 credits from a school, but this doesn't mean that the program is formally conducted AT or WITH that university. The program I did, Research Science Institute, is a great one. There are others such as SSP, Clark Scholars, Garcia, and more which you can find online. However, you are bound to encounter some fishy programs as well, so just stay vigilant!

Note that many of these programs are extremely competitive, so doing independent research first or as a back-up is a great option!

4. Competitions: You may have been confused when I tossed around the "ISEF" and "Broadcom MASTERS" acronyms earlier on. These are science competitions where you can present your research projects and compete with students from all over the world. These competitions are a great way to showcase your work and get feedback from experts in the field. Since this is a college application forum, I should mention -- these also look great on college applications and can open doors to other opportunities. ISEF genuinely changed my life, and it was one of the fondest experiences I have from high school. Getting a trip with friends is also a lot of fun :) Look up science research competitions in your area and see which ones you are eligible for.

Now, inevitably, there are probably a ton of you that have no idea what you should start with/do! I'll first start by saying, the best way to learn how to do science research is to just do it :) You can read all of these posts and guides online, but at the end of the day, the best way to learn and improve is by actually conducting research. You will make mistakes, but that's part of the process!

Here are some things that I did to start out:

Make a notebook and start reading news in an area you are interested in, every day. If you don't know what area you are interested in, pick one randomly to start with. Make notes in your notebook and record questions you have. As you come up with questions, you will find yourself leaning towards certain ones over others: i.e. you might be really intrigued to find the answer to "how do we know the Milky Way's Mass?" as opposed to "why does water spin clockwise"
You may have noticed that these questions are extremely broad. This is GOOD! As you get deeper and deeper, you will ask more complex questions, i.e. "Why are there varying numbers of synonymous codons in different species genomes?"
At a certain point, the hope is that you stumble upon a question that no one knows the answer to/the answer you stumble upon isn't ideal. This is your first idea for a project! My very first science project was on why certain liquids produce more gases than others. I thought chemistry would be my favorite around 6th grade, then later got more interested in biology after some amazing teachers in middle school, before getting specifically interested in synthetic biology and computational biology in early high school, until I went to summer camp before senior year and totally switched into Neuroscience! Today, I'm doing computational neuro work, but am sure my interests might continue to change a little.
Once you have a good list of questions, start exploring them - this is the beginning of your independent project! There will be many that you can't do because of limited resources or access, but hopefully you will find some that you can do from home! The internet and computers are amazing tools (can be used for modeling, simulations, etc.) and power a ton of student-run projects. This is why you see machine learning super commonplace in student research nowadays.

On online forums, you will unfortunately find a lot of negativity around science research, ISEF, publishing papers etc. as students. This is because there are situations where students get assisted by parents/connections and technically compete on a biased playing field. But notice that my post DOES NOT mention anything about parents or connections - science research as a high schooler doesn't have to be this! To those of you who don't have connections, etc. but want to do research - please know that YOU CAN DO IT!

Also, as a concluding note, please remember - there are a ton of other ways to explore your interest in STEM besides doing research. I personally did research so I love suggesting it, but remember that there are olympiads, bowls, robotics, science clubs, hackathons, and more.

6 comments