The experience of scientific research internship can not only help you understand the actual situation of related majors or industries, but also enrich the content of your later application materials. One of the main differences between China college students and American college students is their practical ability. Scientific research practice with a certain amount of gold can make up for it, reflecting your practical ability and research depth of applied specialty. Brother Xun reminds everyone that the closer the research internship experience is to the professional direction of the application, the better, because American university admissions officers want to see your professionalism, your personal experience and experience. Especially for business students, your internship experience will not only meet the most basic admission requirements of the school, but also be the most important talk in the interview.
Recognizing the importance of scientific research practice, how can we effectively plan scientific research practice?
For students who continue to apply for this major, the best research internship period is after they have a certain professional foundation, that is, after completing the professional basic courses. According to the curriculum of most colleges and universities, this time falls to junior year. Of course, you can also use your freshman and sophomore holidays to do scientific research practice, but it depends on the effect of practice. Many times, without the foundation of specialized courses, scientific research practice will become a walk-on to run errands and do odd jobs, and the gold content will be greatly reduced. Empathy, internship units also hope that your professional ability can be used by them. With professional ability, you can naturally compete for better internship opportunities, learn more things and achieve a win-win situation.
If you want to apply for a major, you need to plan your research internship as soon as possible. First of all, you need to know whether this major is suitable for you. Second, you need to find out the defects in your professional background through scientific research practice and adjust your subsequent learning direction. Brother Xun suggested that the first scientific research internship should not be too long. After a preliminary understanding of the relevant industries and majors, determine the applicants, then prepare for the language test as soon as possible, and set aside at least one month in the summer vacation of junior year for a more in-depth and valuable professional scientific research internship.
For students and friends, how to find a suitable research internship opportunity is also a "difficult point". On the one hand, we can take the initiative to use various resources, such as parents' personal connections, teachers' professional recommendations, open recruitment of companies and enterprises, and so on. On the other hand, we should also try to find professional study abroad institutions to assist in the completion. Because you want to be recognized by the admissions officers of famous American universities, you are competing for your comprehensive ability, ideological realm and personal characteristics. How to make a scientific research internship with content, depth, innovative value and professional achievements still needs comprehensive planning.
How to find opportunities for research?
1 define the field you want to study, preferably the specific direction.
Before looking for research opportunities, you need to determine your personal interests. Besides, you must find out what you are interested in this field and what you want to learn. Google Academic is one of the best resources to help you determine your interests. It allows you to search documents and research reports of many disciplines. At the same time, you should consult the frontier journals in your field of interest.
Determine your research time.
You do academic research in two different periods, during the summer vacation and during the school year. Summer research can be conducted in your own school or in any school in the world. Academic year research is usually done in your school or a nearby school. The path of obtaining research opportunities in two different time periods is also different.
3. Obtain relevant information and explore potential resources.
You should find out which professors are doing research in your field of interest in your school and surrounding areas. List the information of professors who are interested in this field and rank them with reference to your clear research direction.
Contact undergraduate or graduate students who work in the laboratory.
A student who works in a professor's laboratory. Undergraduate students are your best choice, because they can better understand your situation. Ask them to give some advice on how to contact the professor, or ask if they can recommend you to the professor.
5 contact the professor
Remember that it is easier for you to get research opportunities in our school than in professional research institutions. Try to understand the academic background and research direction of relevant professors. You should send an email to the professor, stating that you want to get an opportunity to do research in his laboratory, and discuss your research interests (commonly known as magnetism) with the professor as deeply as possible. Professors are buried by a lot of emails every day. Therefore, you need a little patience.
How to adapt yourself to a scientific research role?
1 Some common sense about scientific research
As we all know, universities have two basic tasks. One is to spread knowledge through teaching.
The other is to create and discover new knowledge through scientific research. The scientific research mentioned here is the second task of the university. The so-called scientific research is to study our world in a scientific way and try to discover new laws. On the basis of professional knowledge, it is necessary to understand the existing research results in a certain field in order to carry out follow-up work on the shoulders of giants.
2 Understand how the research team works
The laboratory mentioned here is not a variety of rooms distributed on campus and filled with experimental equipment. The laboratory is a system, a set of rules of the game and a way of life. For example, there will always be a boss in a laboratory, and there will be several doctoral students below, and then there will be several master students, or even one or two undergraduates who play soy sauce. This is a human relationship. If the boss wants to run this lab, he has to pull the project outside and assign it to the team. Different bosses have different management styles, some may be very strict with their opponents, while others are very relaxed. But no matter what style, the boss is very concerned about whether he can make something or send an article. What I have said belongs to some specific characteristics and operation modes of the laboratory system.
As an undergraduate, if you want to participate in scientific research, you must enter the research team of a laboratory and have a general understanding of the operation mode of this laboratory.
Learn to learn by consulting and reading literature.
Maybe you will feel that you are an undergraduate and know nothing. What can you do when you enter the laboratory? It is suggested that we should start with reading and learning related literature and do a good job in the basic knowledge reserve of related research. Because scientific research needs to consult a large number of documents related to predecessors' work, undergraduates can also make use of their abundant time and good English foundation to make efforts in document retrieval and reading and provide relevant help to their brothers and sisters in the laboratory.
As an undergraduate, you can work hard on the abstract, introduction and conclusion first, and understand what problems an article has solved, what work predecessors have done on this issue, and where the contribution of this article is, which is enough. As for the details of the method or some algorithms and formulas, it doesn't matter if you don't understand them for the time being. As long as you have an impression, you can use it in the future, and it is not too late to learn again.
Master the basic skills of doing research coolies
As an undergraduate, taking part in scientific research practice, in a sense, besides learning experience, I hope to improve my academic background. To the boss, you are a cheap labor. Since it is a labor force, it is necessary to be able to work. Therefore, for the applicant, knowing what he can do is one of the important factors for the boss to consider whether he wants you or not. Then the purpose of entering the laboratory in the undergraduate stage is very clear, and it is necessary to master some skills that can be used in the postgraduate and doctoral stages in the future.