Oh yeah -- also see pg's undergraduation: http://paulgraham.com/college.html , which is on point here. I think in some essay he points out that if you want to work in a lab, you need to convince the prof that you'll be a net decrease in work. This is harder than it might appear.
If your goal is grad school, try to get into a research lab as an undergrad. Meet a professor in office hours and ask them: most professors want students because it’s free help, and if they say no you can ask another professor. Working in a lab you can also get a paid position or course credit.
If your goal is industry, try to get internships in your field. Most colleges have co-ops where the internship lasts a semester and sometimes the college helps you. You can also get summer internships on your own. Personal projects are also good for getting a first internship.
Whatever you do, definitely join clubs and make sure to have a social life / relax sometimes.
Your chances of landing a job in a research lab in undergrad probably doesn’t correlate with top research output. People who have armies of phds and post docs don’t have time for undergrads.
I spent my last 2 years of uni in a research lab and got some stuff published. Im pretty sure i got this opportunity because i went to a school with a dearth of grad students and i showed some initiative in an intro class for what became my minor.
The part that hit home for me was his description of the Prof's frustration with the speed at which he was implementing the enhancement to Klee and the fact that most grad students are not as smart as their advisors.
Most grad students are exhilarated to work with a brilliant researcher but it can crushing when one learns his or her own limitations.
Like the author says, probably 1 in 100 are the equal of their advisor and capable of becoming a professor at a comparable university.
> Career coaches for places like that will advise college students to focus on maximizing grades, at the cost of intellectually demanding classes (or anything, really!)
At MIT, some undergrads could get hired as research assistants for professor's projects (usually working under the direction of one of the professor's grad students). But MIT undergrads can have punishing courseloads, and it wasn't unusual for students to get overwhelmed with classes, and ghost the research side job. I'd hear grad students say that it seemed silly for one of their undergrad assistants to trade a recommendation from a well-connected professor, for only a slightly better GPA. But, in hindsight, I suppose that the undergrads knew what they were doing.
> college employed many of my classmates in other positions
And how many classmates were not employed? Far more. So yes, the grad/undergrad distinction is valid. Undergrads are often assigned boring research jobs and are paid less.
> anyone who wants to do science can become a grad student
A grad student is an apprentice. This article is about a less taken path for a master. As a former PhD grad student, I can say most grad students are not in a position to conduct independent research. Most get attached to some funding obtained by someone more experienced than them, and then spend most of their time getting up to speed until they are able to write their own papers on that topic. But this leaves them a very narrow set of skills. This is why most academics go through a postdoc.
>Undergraduates don't have the specialized knowledge required to teach or to contribute substantially to research. Graduate students, however, do both of these jobs.
I don't think grad/undergrad is the right distinction here. I was employed by my undergrad-only liberal arts alma-mater as a teaching assistant and research assistant. And the college employed many of my classmates in other positions. We weren't exploited like many graduated students are, but another institution could have treated us worse.
No, he said you can't pursue graduate studies unless you have an undergrad degree.
Let's be real, most undergrad programs are trash, and only exist to satisfy industry filters. Wow you learned all these topics on your own but do not have a paper? Too bad!!!! . I respect graduate studies, but I have zero respect for undergrad.
> Many grad students are pretty much completely at the mercy of their advisor and university.
If your advisor is sympathetic, there's nothing that prevents you from continuing to work on your thesis. If you still have coursework, then you're probably out of luck, but if you're ABD, then you might be just fine. But that would require a sympathetic advisor.
> By taking fewer classes, there's more available time for the motivated student to read an interesting paper related to the lecture that week--and read it thoroughly. There's more time to think critically about interesting, new problems, and even to discover one's own passions or calling.
This is why it's a good idea to join a research lab, even if only for a semester. Hanging out with grad students can give you a new perspective on a lot of cool things you'd never know about and help demonstrate why certain things are important.
Funny to see this pop up, it's from 2008. I worked with Martin for quite a few years and we spoke about this article at one point. If I recall, the intended audience of this article is primarily incoming graduate students.The point being that the experience of doing research is very different from taking classes. It is not uncommon to see those who excelled in their undergraduate studies go on to graduate school and be dismayed to find that a PhD program uses a different skill set from getting good grades.
If your adviser is an asshole, you probably won't graduate and your grad school experience will suck. Don't.
If you want to get a Ph.D. and do research, pick your adviser very carefully. It is the most important decision of your research career. Grad school isn't like school, it's an apprenticeship.
Pick your adviser (the person you are apprenticed to) on two factors: the success of their past students and how compatible you are personally with them. Their field should be peripherally related to yours, it doesn't have to be very close (1).
I had a great experience in grad school. I also had two great advisers.
(1) My advisers study scattering theory and complex variables. My Ph.D. was in computational physics. It wasn't a serious problem.
>certain courses and disciplines that require university facilities (experimental labs)
My sense is that, by and large, they're not being done remotely at the grad level. The schools I'm familiar with also have undergrads back in limited numbers in part so that they can take care of courses that have to be done physically.
> Grad students making significant contributions is extremely rare; basically all of the real research is done by tenured professors.
...but most of these first authors (the people formally credited with doing the real work) are graduate students, so how does that fit in with your theory?
It's not what you asked for, but if you haven't read the likes of it before, you should. I wish I could have read it when I was your age. I wonder if I would have believed it.
If you still need advice on graduate admissions, I can tell you that pg and cperciva are on the right track. Undergrad research is particularly great, as it gives you lots of contact with an adviser who will write great recommendation letters for you.
Oh yeah -- also see pg's undergraduation: http://paulgraham.com/college.html , which is on point here. I think in some essay he points out that if you want to work in a lab, you need to convince the prof that you'll be a net decrease in work. This is harder than it might appear.
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