Happy winter break everyone! Now is the perfect time to polish up your dusty resume and dedicate some energy toward getting the most out of your College Undergraduate Experience.
Research (along with “internship”) is one of those words you hear A LOT. Especially for pre-health students, it’s thrown left and right, starting from freshman orientation day.
In a cutthroat environment like the University of Washington, the imposter syndrome and feelings of incompetency emerge from the impression that everyone around you is ***Thriving***. Meanwhile, you are out here trying not to get crushed by the weed-out classes (shoutout to that 2.6 GPA class average in Ochem).
Well, I’m here to share with you that undergraduate research is not that intimidating and you can also do it!
Table of Contents
Research is not as scary as it sounds
I had the impression that research was very daunting, time-consuming, and only for the over-achievers.
Prior to college, research projects from classes like history and biology were always so stressful and complicated. In my college freshman year, general chemistry labs were awful. Doing experiments that IDGAF about while wearing bulky lab goggles and standing for 3 hours straight, followed by grinding out confusing and heavy-weighted lab reports weekly was Not A Fun Experience.
I did not fancy the idea of putting myself through something like that.
Luckily, research is a big umbrella term. In contrast to my preconceived notions, microbiology laboratory work (wet lab) is only one of the many fields of research. For instance, there is clinical research where the subjects are humans. There is computational (dry lab) where you deal more with numbers and programming. Different fields study different things, thus have different methods of data collection and execution.
In college, you have the agency to partake in research that actually interests you. It’s an enjoyable experience if you enjoy the work that you do.
Research Game plan
1. Go to your college’s undergraduate research website
Most universities have a website about undergraduate research. At UW, this is the undergraduate research program. It offers information sessions where you get a better picture of what research is and receive some general guidance on how to start.
2. Start exploring
There are two types of research opportunities: the light ones and the dark ones (I made these phrases up because they make sense in my head haha).
Light opportunities:
These are the ones that are posted in public. They are recruiting, everyone gets a fair shot for the spot, and the best applicant(s) is/are selected.
Examples of where to look:
– Your school’s research database (UW: database and summer programs)
Since the whole university has access to these portals, the programs are very competitive. The demand is high and the supply is scarce.
If you have a pretty dry resume, your chances are extremely slim. Additionally, it’s difficult to come across oppurntities where you fit their desired qualifications AND it’s work that you would enjoy AND it’s in a in a field that you are interested in.
Dark opportunities:
These are ones that are not made public. You will have to narrow down your targets and send cold-emails. You have the wheel and you take initiative.
The possibilities are virtually infinite, but it can also feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You don’t know if they have room for you or even if they are currently doing research.
To brainstorm, consider:
– What field of research? (ex: microbiology, business, engineering, psychology)
– What type of work? (ex: data analysis, lab experiments, clinical trials, machine learning)
Once you have an idea, here are your options: school departmental websites and research organization websites.
A. School departmental websites:
This is where I would begin my search. Some departments have a specific website concerning how students can get involved with their field of research.
Ex: google “UW computer science undergraduate research”
B. Departmental faculty websites
Each department has a list of its faculty members.
For instance: google “UW public health faculty” (lowkey the PH website could be more intuitive but anyway).
Usually, each faculty member has a bio about their research interests and projects that are working on. Some have quite an extensive bio with links to their publications and everything.
On the flip side, some don’t even have a profile picture.
Things to consider:
– Do they have recent publications? (indication of how active they are)
– What are their research topics of interest?
– Skim their publications: is this the type of work you would want to do?
– Do they have a lab?
C. Research organization websites
To broaden your scope, you can search through the staff/lab directory of research centers. Brainstorm ones that you have heard about. If you are stuck, just google “(your field of interest) research”.
For pre-health students, here are some institutions with a lot of funding and a lot of labs :
– UW Medicine
– Seattle Children’s Hospital
– Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
3. Organize your potential targets
Compile a google doc of all of the people whose research interest you. I like to bullet point their name (duh), contact information, short bio (copy and paste), their website link (for convenient access), and additional notes (things to highlight).
4. Finally, make contact with them!
How to send research cold-emails
A cold-email is basically an email to someone who doesn’t know you and you don’t really know them. It is a shot in the dark.
With that being said, the key is to cast a wide net. This hunt will make your skin thicker because rejection is inevitable.
Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter if you get 30 “no”s, it’s the one “yes” that matters.
Cold-email structure breakdown:
Paragraph 1:
Sell yourself. Capture their attention with either your experiences or passion, or both. Passion is especially important if you have no previous (research) experience.
A. The basics
Your name, year of study, school, and major.
B. Your background
What is your interested field of research? Why are you passionate about it/ interested in it? What is the genesis of such interest? What kind of projects and experiences do you have in this field? If you don’t have any, do you have a personal story to tell? What particular issues do you want to help find the solution to? How would this research opportunity help you toward your career goals?
Paragraph 2:
You have to be specific. Show that you know what their work is about, and that you are not sending the same generic email to 100 other people. Point to specific publications to show that you took the time to understand their work and that you want to be a part of it.
A. The researcher/lab
How did you come across their profile? What does this researcher/lab do? Why are you interested? How do their research topics align with your own interests? What aspects about their project and the specific methodologies do you like?
B. Specific publications
What publications do they have that interest you? Do you see yourself dedicating time to it? What are your thoughts on the research results? (You really just need to read the abstract/summary. I got lazy and just mentioned the titles heehee).
Paragraph 3:
Conclusion and logistics
A. Mention that your resume and unofficial transcript are attached.
B. Reiterate your interest in joining.
C. Willing to work unpaid. (Most computer science and engineering positions are paid. However, most biomedical and business research positions are not, especially if you are just starting out. You could just take the imitative and say that you are willing to work unpaid).
D. Ask to have a meeting to speak further about their work.
E. Ask who you can reach out to if they do not have any open positions or the time to meet.
F. State how many hours a week you can commit to and when you are available to begin.
G. The “Thank you for reading this inquiry and I hope to hear from you soon!”
Meet with them
If they say that they can’t offer you a position, but is willing to meet with you, absolutely say yes. This is especially beneficial at the beginning of your hunt. They may refer you to other professors in the department who may be recruiting or just give good academic/career advice in general. When you contact those sources, you can mention the referrer’s name.
If they say that they have something that you may be interested in, then WOOHOO. At this point, you’re looking really good. The meeting would be ~kind of ~ like an mini interview. Except it’s more to inquire about each other’s expectations and interests. They want you to benefit from the experience as much as they want to benefit from your assistance.
In either case, you have to do your homework:
A. Review their research interests and publications
B. Prepare to answer when they ask how you found their profile
C. Reflect upon your past professional experiences and what you hope to acquire
D. Come with questions to ask about their research
You want to give off a self-motivated impression, and not just vibing in the back seat. You also need to articulate your experiences and goals well so you seem prepared and professional.
Expect the meeting to be around 20-60 minutes.
To my surprise, professors and research faculty members are super duper chill and friendly. They genuinely want to help students succeed. Try to relax and be engaging.
My experience
I had a bit of an existential crisis during the spring quarter of my freshman year. I considered dropping the pre-health route altogether to detour to the biotech/health administration route. However, I ultimately realized that my passion still relates to healthcare and that I want to become a dietician.
Research experience is critical if you want to get into graduate school in STEM. I decided to suck it up and went to an undergraduate research information session.
It was very helpful and dispelled a lot of my pre-conceived notions. Nevertheless, confusion is part of the experience of navigating through uncharted territory.
I sent out a total of 12 emails. Here are the stats:
- UW faculty: No, down to talk, had a 30 min meeting, gave me other active faculty names
- UW faculty: No response (followed-up twice)
- UW faculty: No, very busy can’t talk
- UW database: No response (followed-up twice)
- UW faculty: Yes/maybe, had a one-hour meeting, working with her now!
- Fred Hutch researcher: No, closing his lab (RIP)
- UW faculty: No response
- UW faculty: No response (followed-up once)
- Fred Hutch researcher: No, down to talk, had a one-hour meeting, connected me to a different lab
- Fred Hutch lab: No/maybe in the future, had a one-hour meeting, said an internship organizing in process
- Fred Hutch researcher: No
- UW medicine lab: Yes/maybe, couldn’t train new assistants because of Covid, I stayed in touch and sent check-in emails monthly, will join in winter quarter!
I definitely had moments when I wanted to give up. Especially because I started my search in summer 2020 during peak Covid, I told myself I had an excuse to quit. But I am glad I didn’t.
To emphasize again, rejection is part of the process. In retrospect, I am happy I got rejected the first couple times. It pushed me to keep looking and eventually find opportunities that are even more ideal.
Tips
- Use your school email. Emails sent from personal email will likely be sent to their junk/spam
- Send follow-up emails after a week of no response. Sometimes it got lost in their inbox and sometimes they just want to ignore you. But either way, do it politely and maybe they will feel bad and respond.
- Some researchers have labs and some don’t. I was so confused because I thought everyone who had PubMed publications meant that they had a lab. That is not true; they may be conducting research though, for example, data collection and meta-analysis.
- Rejection is redirection. Don’t give up!