As many of you have probably experienced firsthand, the college admissions process in the US is becoming more and more competitive. The days of double digit admissions rates are gone at some of the most selective universities. For someone who is a viable applicant to a few of them, and who REALLY wants to get in to a few of them, it's scary. Nothing is for sure. There are simply too many people with >2300 SAT, >10 APs, and uwGPA=4.0 out there for the limited spots available, not to mention the people that get in for non-academic reasons. However, that is only the background for this blog entry. This isn't a brag blog. I'm humbly coming to you folks at TL for help with what I hope will become the ace up my sleeve in the admissions process.
One thing I've noticed in accepted students threads on another forum is that many admits to top schools have done research and participated in the Siemens or Intel competitions. If I had to describe these projects, they mostly seem to be what you would expect of a UG upper classman or a grad student. Here are some winning intel projects for reference. I've noticed that biology, specifically when involved with cancer, is disproportionately represented. Unfortunately, I suck at biology. I'm good at chemistry. As such, I'm going to attempt research related to it.
My school is not on that list I linked. In fact, nobody from my state is on that list. I don't know anyone who has ever done this before. I don't know where to start. Aside from getting a summer internship with a lab chemist, I haven't done anything yet. I need ideas. I'll run some ideas by you all. If you like one, tell me. If you dislike one (or find it too simple), tell me. If you think this blog is way too long and I'm a selfish leech, tell me. Feel free to supply ideas of your own.
Ideas so far: Create a three dimensional molecule modeling program. Hopefully it would look like what's in this spoiler, but rotatable. + Show Spoiler +
Create a more in depth version of the above that uses kinetics to model relationships between solute and uncommon solvents (phenol, liquid ammonia, etc.) Try to create some sort of lithium- air battery. This would probably be too hard or too inefficient. Expand upon carborane/organoselenium research because there is currently not much research in these areas.
Otherwise, I've got nothing. I want to do something that won't require very complex or expensive machinery, but I also want to do something important. I notice someone did well by only extending the phase diagram for methane- really simple, but likely requiring equipment capable of either extreme temperature or pressure. If you've got a good idea, please tell me. You also get a reward for reading this far. This is a somewhat oldish song and you might've heard it before, but by god it's good. Warning, the second part of this song is not nearly as good in my opinion.
Thanks for reading. If didn't read the whole thing, check out that list in the middle and tell me if it's viable for a competitive research competition.
Update June 19: Things turned out a bit differently than I had expected. The research that I am doing is at a startup company that is making progress in a new field of medicine that will becmoe quite important in the next couple of decades. Mostly, they work on genetics. I am doing research starting in late July about epigenetics with a rising junior in UG (I am a rising senior in HS who has not even taken AP (uni-level) Bio yet, so I need to do a lot of reading). Beyond reading the wikipedia page about this field, I am wondering if any of you could recommend a good book about this field. I don't want to be dead weight and I will need to work quite fast if I want to submit my work on time.
if you are in 11th or 12th grade with a stellar academic record, try and find research opportunities at your local 4 year university. several of my friends did that and ended up with projects worthy to orally present at state-level science conventions. the schools they got into? Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Georgetown, USC, Macalester, Wellesley, and Haverford were just a few.
Do you remember how they started that? Did they just ask professors if there was anything to be done, or did they approach them with ideas? I've read online that this is how people usually do it, but I didn't want to annoy a busy professor, and I definitely fear starting something and then being too inept to finish it. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and start sending out cold emails.
Interestingly, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT are my top 3 right now.
it's highly unlikely that a university will spend it's research money on a high school student's research proposal. it's much more probable that you'd be joining a project currently underway. the only way to find out is to ask. don't worry about annoying them. the worst case scenario is that they say no, which is not a big deal.
assuming you have zero lab research experience, they aren't going to give you important tasks in the beginning. perhaps you'll run the dishwasher for the test tubes lol. but after a month or two they'll gradually give you greater responsibility if they see you doing good work. it's really up to you to prove to them that you're capable. i wouldn't worry about being too inept to finish it. you're only a high school student, and they realize that too. you'll likely be working as an assistant for a graduate student.
On March 26 2013 09:03 LosingID8 wrote: it's highly unlikely that a university will spend it's research money on a high school student's research proposal. it's much more probable that you'd be joining a project currently underway. the only way to find out is to ask. don't worry about annoying them. the worst case scenario is that they say no, which is not a big deal.
assuming you have zero lab research experience, they aren't going to give you important tasks in the beginning. perhaps you'll run the dishwasher for the test tubes lol. but after a month or two they'll gradually give you greater responsibility if they see you doing good work. it's really up to you to prove to them that you're capable. i wouldn't worry about being too inept to finish it. you're only a high school student, and they realize that too. you'll likely be working as an assistant for a graduate student.
Just to add on to these good suggestions, if you know how to program (which by your OP sounds like you do) I would suggest to try and find some work with a group that does modeling. It takes up a lot less resources, you don't have to be trained to handle any equipment, and they won't have to get someone to babysit you. In other words, you can potentially begin getting results without a long startup time. Pretty much every concentration has some form of computational modeling and it can cover a huge spectrum between pure physics to phenomenological models, so just find something you're comfortable with and start trying to find professors in that field.
Create a three dimensional molecule modeling program. Hopefully it would look like what's in this spoiler, but rotatable.
many variations of this tool already exists (I use them for my research), so unless you have a really strong CS/Physics background, I suggest not doing this.
Because you are a high school student, it's not expected for you to come up with a novel idea or project. The best thing you can do is try to get into contact with a professor from a local university. Go to various departmental websites (e.g., chemistry, chemical engineering, bioengineering, etc.), look at the research areas, and contact professors that have interesting research and ask for a summer lab position. State specifically why you want to join their lab and what research projects are interesting to you. Do not send out a generic email to 100 different professors because they deal with this kind of thing every day and will not bother reading it. Essentially, you need to tailor each of your emails to show that you've actually looked into their research. Even better, if you can get access to some of their most recent papers published (i.e., 2013 or 2012), read them and make some kind of note about this in your email (e.g., say something about how you really like the research in this paper and are wondering if this project is open for new students to work on). Also, attach your resume. Lastly, make sure you read this: http://www.pgbovine.net/email-tips.htm
edit: also, unless you have some kind of connection (e.g., through a teacher at your school), a lot of the emails you send out will probably not get a response, so don't be disappointed. Just keep reaching out to professors and, hopefully, one will give you a position.
btw, if you have aspirations of getting a PhD or med school, i highly recommend getting involved with research with an official lab in any capacity in high school. it'll give you a huge advantage when you get to college. you'll probably be able to land a research position in your freshman year because you already have research experience working in a lab, and profs and phd candidates LOVE not having to hold your hand for the first semester that you're in their lab.
Well I'm sure you know this, but the way your blog is worded compels me to say the obvious: if you're doing it as a way to get into a prestigious university, you're not in it for the right reasons. That being said, whether or not you're passionate about research may not matter I suppose as long as you do work hard for your lab and apply yourself. Can't hurt to contribute to the body of scientific knowledge and research.
javy_ and LosingID already preempted what I was going to say (there already exist many programs that model molecules and their interactions--coming up with and desiging+creating one would be very difficult anyway, you will almost certainly be added on as a member and work on a project--and not get to design your own, and that research can be a very rewarding experience if you put a lot into it).
I really can't give you any better advice than the posters before me. Depending on where you are located, and what resources are available to you in your school, I would say that one avenue that you can follow is checking with your teachers (if there's an "AP" or "Honors" program in place, that teacher would be a good place to start) as they may know of opportunities or be willing to help you find the kind of thing that previous posters have mentioned.
You mention that your state doesn't have anyone involved with the Intel projects (that you're aware of) but it's possible that somewhere there may be people that can assist you. And you may also face challenges in that your local area may not be a hotbed of scientific research. Which would really really suck. Whatever the case, the thing to keep in mind is that the kinds of research projects you're talking about (even at the high school level) are not one man endeavors - no research these days really is - so you should look into what's available that you could become involved in.
In any sense, don't get discourage by any hurdles or challenges you might run across - keep at it and keep working towards what you want. And talk about it with the lab chemist you're interning with - there may be other options and opportunities you haven't thought of.
Relax. There are plenty of great colleges, and each of them take 100s to thousands of students per major. While there are plenty of qualified applicants, most of them get accepted. Even those who don't get accepted into the major they applied for still often get into a general studies program where they can switch into the major they want.
You are right; those projects look like what an UG upperclassman or grad student would do for reasearch. While doing research like that probably would guarantee you a slot in almost any college you applied to, there's thousands of students going to every college who haven't done anything nearly as difficult. Just the fact that you're brainstorming what you could do at that level indicates to me that you are almost definitely at the level where you could get into most colleges you apply to, even some of the prestigious ones.
I'm not saying "don't do cool research like that", or "start slacking off". I'm just saying, relax and don't worry about it. All you have to do is do your best with what interests you, (and apply to a college or two) and you'll be fine.
Regarding my motivations for doing this and the poster above me, I want to get involved with research because I am not sure if it is something that I want to do when I'm older. I know I'm relatively good at chemistry and it's also something that I enjoy learning, so this isn't purely vocational work. I admittedly do want to get in to some of the prestigious universities and I know this is one of the better ways to do so; however, I think I might become involved in research down the line so going to these schools would help me out initially in my career. They are good schools for whatever career, and even if I were to change my mind I could still start off strong in something like finance or computer science.
I tried checking with my teachers; they were mostly worthless. I go to a good school, but it's a Catholic school and most of the people that would want to do research go to the public magnet school. I'm on my own regarding school.
I guess what I will have to do is contact my local university, the University of Louisville. I had assumed that not much research was going on there- you don't hear about them on the news very much. However, looking at some of the chemistry-related papers published lately (or at least the titles ), I think they will actually have enough room for me to tag along on some interesting stuff. I might have some more questions, but for now I'll just start looking at which professor seems to have the coolest projects and ask to help. And no, I'm not going to send the same email to every single one
I didn't want to make a new thread for this, and it's not very related to what my original blog post, but I decided to do some experimenting involving batteries just to get a sense of how they work. I took an AA Ni M-hydride battery that was 2300 mAh and also an aluminum paper clip. I bent the paper clip so that each side could touch a corresponding side of the battery, and then I attached to battery and paper clip. Small sparks flew out from at least one side of the battery, and the aluminum got very hot. The first time I did it, it wasn't too hot, so I did it again. Well, I told my mom to touch it, and she nearly got burned. Basically what I want to ask is a multipart question
1. Why is everything getting so hot? Aren't electrochemical reactions supposed to be more efficient because they don't release much heat? 2. Is this going to damage the battery more than normal use? I used a rechargeable battery, maybe I should use a one-time use one. 3. Am I putting myself and the people around in danger by doing this? Could the heat cause melting or decomposition of the battery, potentially exposing myself and others to very hot, potentially harmful chemicals? Will the battery explode?
Mainly I'm asking these questions because I want to do some work messing around but I can't figure out of it's (somewhat) safe. I am tempted to set up an apparatus where I submerge part of the aluminum in water to heat it up, but this could be dangerous. My googling mostly led me to advertisements and battery-based heating systems/ car batteries so I don't know where else to ask.
Well, as a chemist, I highly recommend not experimenting before knowing the outcome. You're not going to discover anything new, except advanced ways to burn your mom. Also, when it comes to doing anything with electricity, sparks=bad, heat=bad, uncovered wires=bad. To answer your first question, the aluminum is not undergoing a reaction, you're simply using it to conduct current, from one end of the battery to the other. Aluminum does this pretty well, so LOTS of electrons can flow through it (look up resistance and conductors to really get a feel for what you were observing). The problem is, with so many electrons flowing through the aluminum at such a high speed, a lot of energy does actually get released as heat. To your second question, I do not think that the rechargeable vs one-time means anything. And to your third, depends on how hot you let it get. If you're interested in electricity, there are far better projects to pursue than this one. I highly recommend checking out electronics kits at radioshack or equivalent, repairing broken electronics equipment, or just taking crap ones apart and identifying what they all do.
In regards to your OP, you actually don't have to worry right now if you're into science to get into a good school. Worry about it when you decide what to major in. Also, since you mentioned that you were in Loiusville, did you look at/consider applying to this:
There are quite a few of these high-school summer science programs all around the country, some of them might cover boarding (i.e. you don't have to go to the local high school). Also, the American Chemical Society has resources which may or may not fit you (I don't know much about you, so here's something you can take a look at): ACS High School Resources
As far as coming up with a new idea for a science project, look up anything to do with microfluidics. They are generally a cheap area of research but people come up with some really really cool ideas. It is also a new field, and highly experimental, this means that you can get a good feel for what is going on by DOING the experiments more than just reading about them. Finally, a lot of the time, if you try to read a scientific article online but do not have access, look at the last author of the paper. This guy/gal is usually the professor, and will often times post a pdf of the article on their lab website.
20XX Intel Semifinalist here: I don't want to sound discouraging--just give you reasonable advice.
If you're planning on doing a project over the summer and submitting by November, now is a good time to seriously secure a spot in the lab you're going to be working with. While it sounds cool and adventurous to strike it out on your own, the reality is that this is almost impossible. If you come up with some cool idea, that's great, but the problem is you really need someone involved with or familiar with academia to give you feedback. Be it designing your experiment, helping you find relevant reference literature, or just telling you when you're doing something that's just fucking wrong. In this sense, working in a lab is invaluable--notice that this doesn't have to be at a university--it's perfectly possible to do good research in a company, though it may be harder to have someone to "mentor" you as effectively. Once you understand this, you will quickly realize that very few of those winning projects--came from wholly original ideas--usually they're shaped and strongly motivated by whatever group/person the student worked with.
There are a few ways to stand out in these competitions. One starting point is to notice that everyone and their mother does cancer research. Is there some funny protein name in the title? Cancer research. Excessive use of acronyms? That's not to say there isn't enough cancer research being done, but these high school competitions are over-saturated with it. It's not hard to see why--cancer research is common in academia, and given how much you can realistically learn in high school--this field is the easiest to jump into. Now you say you want to do something else? Well, your options are basically limited to what you can find, and I will argue that physical sciences at this level are a bit more involved. Look at old winning projects, but learn what makes the unique ones unique.
The bottom line is to find a group in academia or industry that you can work with on an idea you are actually interested in. I tried to strike it out on my own the year before I worked with an actual company and competed in ISTS, and the results speak for themselves. Sure, doing a project completely on your own can get you to your state science fair, but beyond that it becomes exceedingly difficult.
Expand upon carborane/organoselenium research because there is currently not much research in these areas.
just a guess, but such research invariably requires air-free technique (glove box / schlenk, which also requires infrastructure and $$$$), and learning that isn't trivial. not saying it is impossible, just that you would be investing a very significant amount of time into learning basic lab technique.
Create a more in depth version of the above that uses kinetics to model relationships between solute and uncommon solvents (phenol, liquid ammonia, etc.)
there are certain DFT methods that already can take into account solvent interactions (though whether they do so accurately is another question)
even at the PhD program level, there's truly very few projects that are independently designed.
also, here is a hint - as long as you go to a decent institution that allow you to get research experience as an undergrad, your choice of undergrad doesn't heavily impact your chances at graduate school admission.
I originally just thought that there would be a current and touching the wire would give a slight shock. I asked about the rechargeable because they're expensive and if this has the potential to break the battery, I don't want to waste money. And of course the aluminum isn't undergoing a reaction; my mentioning of the electrochemical reaction was referencing the Ni-MH reaction. Anyway, I looked up what was happening and I was basically short circuiting the wire, and the heat has the potential to rupture the battery, so I'm not going to do that stuff any more.
That speed camp's deadline was two days ago, and I'm already doing a research related gig, while that seems to be more of a way to recruit minorities into engineering. I've actually done one of the things under that ACS link, Chem Olympiad, and did pretty well. I'll be going to an ACS banquet so I can probably ask some of those people about opportunities personally. I'm not a minority/ low SES so a lot of the other things are not available for me.
@ Loser777
I guess I'm in luck because I will be doing drug-related research, some of which probably involves cancer, at a local company. I'm going to mainly be working with someone who is a lab (or bench, can't remember the name) chemistry PhD, so I guess I should just do what he asks of me for a few weeks and then ask if he has any good ideas/would be willing to help with a science fair project? If that doesn't work out I'll approach the local university. I'm somewhat excited about the lab where I'm interning because it is a new field of study, and many of the finalist projects are in interesting new fields or are just crazy complicated (how the hell did that kid design a motor to run off surface tension??). I don't even want to strike out on my own anymore. I still need a lot of luck, haha. Since you probably knew other people who submitted to Intel STS, if you have a good topic and a paper with substance, are you pretty much guaranteed semifinalist?
@ 419
You're right, a lot of these exotic compounds are pretty dangerous/ require extreme conditions so any research would take a lot of equipment. I just overlooked that in my eagerness to do something new. I'm thinking of doing something more tame.
Also, to you guys saying I don't need to do this until I'm in UG, I'd like to know if I'd like to do this for a living before majoring in a hard science. I also realize that UG school isn't the end-all-be-all of my life, but I ideally want to go to MIT so if I don't like the hard sciences I could still have the best CS program in the world. Already having done research would be a big help.
Also, to you guys saying I don't need to do this until I'm in UG, I'd like to know if I'd like to do this for a living before majoring in a hard science.
Majoring in a subject != making a living out of that subject, and anyways you can switch majors if you want. It's hard to find jobs in the field with just a BA anyways, and you'll find out later that you can't do individual research unless you complete extra degrees on top of the BA. My bro graduated last year with a BA in biochem and plenty of lab experience and still couldn't find anything but slave-labor volunteer positions in labs around a major city, so now he's heading back to get a MA, which (if it goes well) will get him on track for a PhD at a more respectable institution. Then, who knows? Academia or industry or whatever he can get.
Also, to you guys saying I don't need to do this until I'm in UG, I'd like to know if I'd like to do this for a living before majoring in a hard science.
Majoring in a subject != making a living out of that subject, and anyways you can switch majors if you want. It's hard to find jobs in the field with just a BA anyways, and you'll find out later that you can't do individual research unless you complete extra degrees on top of the BA. My bro graduated last year with a BA in biochem and plenty of lab experience and still couldn't find anything but slave-labor volunteer positions in labs around a major city, so now he's heading back to get a MA, which (if it goes well) will get him on track for a PhD at a more respectable institution. Then, who knows? Academia or industry or whatever he can get.
I know. Basically, I know that I like studying the hard sciences. If I get a UG degree in them, I would either go to medical school, somehow get a job with a BA (hahaha) or get a masters degree. If I'm going to get a masters, I'd want to get a PhD. If I do that, I need to like or just tolerate research.
On April 14 2013 10:00 Chocolate wrote: I didn't want to make a new thread for this, and it's not very related to what my original blog post, but I decided to do some experimenting involving batteries just to get a sense of how they work. I took an AA Ni M-hydride battery that was 2300 mAh and also an aluminum paper clip. I bent the paper clip so that each side could touch a corresponding side of the battery, and then I attached to battery and paper clip. Small sparks flew out from at least one side of the battery, and the aluminum got very hot. The first time I did it, it wasn't too hot, so I did it again. Well, I told my mom to touch it, and she nearly got burned. Basically what I want to ask is a multipart question
1. Why is everything getting so hot? Aren't electrochemical reactions supposed to be more efficient because they don't release much heat? 2. Is this going to damage the battery more than normal use? I used a rechargeable battery, maybe I should use a one-time use one. 3. Am I putting myself and the people around in danger by doing this? Could the heat cause melting or decomposition of the battery, potentially exposing myself and others to very hot, potentially harmful chemicals? Will the battery explode?
Mainly I'm asking these questions because I want to do some work messing around but I can't figure out of it's (somewhat) safe. I am tempted to set up an apparatus where I submerge part of the aluminum in water to heat it up, but this could be dangerous. My googling mostly led me to advertisements and battery-based heating systems/ car batteries so I don't know where else to ask.
Unless I'm mistaken, what you did was create a short circuit. The electrons were moving from one part of the battery to the other with nothing in between(a load) to power. This means that the wire will get hot to the point where you can get burned by touching it and you could start a fire. I'm not sure but as recall that the battery might even explode if this continues for a while so I would avoid doing it again.
"A common type of short circuit occurs when the positive and negative terminals of a battery are connected with a low-resistance conductor, like a wire. With low resistance in the connection, a high current exists, causing the cell to deliver a large amount of energy in a short time."
I think doing some research is a good idea to get experience and find out if it's what you truly want. You already explained your reasoning behind wanting this kind of work and it's pretty reasonable. Have fun at your new work place!
Anyway, I looked up what was happening and I was basically short circuiting the wire, and the heat has the potential to rupture the battery, so I'm not going to do that stuff any more.
Yeah, I figured out what was happening eventually. Not going to do that anymore.
EPT![[image loading]](http://0.tqn.com/d/chemistry/1/0/S/e/phenol.jpg)
), I think they will actually have enough room for me to tag along on some interesting stuff. I might have some more questions, but for now I'll just start looking at which professor seems to have the coolest projects and ask to help. And no, I'm not going to send the same email to every single one 
