r/UndergraduateResearch

Hi guys! I'm in my fourth year at UTSG majoring in psych and minoring in soc and physiology. I honestly was a bit lost throughout undergrad and after figuring everything out and establishing a solid career plan, I completely forgot about gaining research experience. This is crucial for my grad school program and now I'm stressing out since it's my last year. I wanted to ask for advice on the best way to gain research experience quickly to build a solid application for grad schools.

I have been looking into fourth year independent research projects and am already scoping out a supervisor so that I am able to start in September. However, I'm confused on whether I should do a full year course or half year and how these projects work in general (does the prof lay out a research plan or do you? etc). I also wanted to ask if there are any other, more effective ways, to gain research experience in my current situation and if there is something else that might be better suited for grad-school apps. Please lmkk. I'd really appreciate your response!!

Hi everyone!
Over the past couple of years, I was fortunate to spend two summers conducting research at MIT through undergraduate research programs. Coming into college, I had no idea how competitive REUs were or what professors were actually looking for. Most of what I learned came from making mistakes, talking to mentors, and refining my approach over multiple application cycles.
Now that I’ve graduated, I’m thinking about offering 1-on-1 REU application coaching for students interested in summer research opportunities.
Some of the things I could help with include:
Finding REUs that fit your interests
Building an application strategy
Resume/CV feedback
Personal statement editing
Cold emailing professors
Preparing for interviews
General advice on maximizing your chances of getting accepted
I obviously can’t guarantee admission, but I can share the strategies that helped me earn research opportunities at MIT and avoid a lot of the mistakes I made early on.
Before I invest time into building this, I wanted to gauge interest.
Would this be something you’d actually pay for? If so, what would you want included?
Feel free to comment below or send me a DM if you’re interested or have questions. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

For more context on who I am, you can visit this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/UndergraduateResearch/comments/1se3mb8/comment/otvcpsc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

In my experience, AI deep research tools (except Consensus) waste more time for me than what I would normally gain through using another AI tool, such as Google Scholar Labs, Research Rabbit, and/or ChatGPT-generated search strings. I know the entire premise of using these deep research assistants is to save time now, and on the surface, with what it outputs appears to meretriciously accomplish this purpose; however, upon closer examination, most of what it says comes from news articles, Wikipedia, and/or blog posts when I ask for more reliable academic sources. Additionally, when I view what the original literature argues, it appears that these models will cherry-pick their facts and claims, while the literal abstract or summary says the exact opposite of what the AI says.

The only reliable one that I can find currently is Consensus Deep Research, which, I believe, has RAG and retrieves its information from scholarly databases, and that’s it. These are the only reasons why this is the only deep research AI tool on occasion that I utilize in my research workflows, and I wish that others would become better at academic research, so that there’s more competition in the space and more reasons for the models to improve. As for now, I will be predominantly using non-deep research tools, as I again don’t believe that they are worth the time saving at the start, only to pay for it later, kind of like the term cognitive debt, except it’s more of a time debt.

Though, it’s not like using these tools will actually get me out of validating these AI tools' outputs based on their primary sources; however, it would be helpful if these assistants could actually output correct information for me to find relevant articles that the AI cited, so that I could spend less time finding these specific papers that pertain to my research niche, and have a more efficient and effective research workflow.

Hi. Started an internship with my lab this summer but honestly my PIs and mentors aren’t the best about communication, especially with my pay. I got the gist that I am going to be compensated for the summer for my hours, but a lab mate recently told me that the lab doesn’t have enough to pay for all the undergraduate interns (a total fund of 6k for the three of us) for more than 20hrs per week. She’s basically insinuating I shouldn’t work or clock more than 20 hrs a week because I won’t be paid after that.

The issue is that this lab mate has been confidently wrong in the past. She confidently told me I had to travel 6hrs + to fill out paperwork from my university, when in reality I sent out an email to one person and was able to do it from home. Another time she told me I wouldn’t be able to be paid anymore if I switched programs at our uni. Also wrong.

My real question is how do I go about asking my PIs or mentors about this whole 20hr limit thing, or even should I at all? This is my first lab and I don’t want to make it seem like all I care about is the money, however I am a broke college student and I truly do not want to do work I will not be fairly compensated for. If anyone has advice or thoughts it would be so appreciated. Thanks!