5 Tips For Undergraduate Project Research
As an undergraduate electrical engineering student, I have plenty of opportunities within the given curriculum to study electronics. What I don’t have is a lot of chances to apply what I’ve learned. Even the labs that are offered in conjunction with my classes seem to focus on minutiae instead of practical design principles.
When I was offered the chance to participate in an undergraduate research cohort, I jumped at it. Here was an opportunity to get some circuit design experience and learn a few new skills. Of course, nothing has turned out quite the way I originally planned.
As the project draws to a close, I find that I’ve learned more about how to do a research project than I have about the subject matter I was researching. Here are a few important things I would tell anyone who takes advantage of a research opportunity.
1. Shove your pride in a box.
Nobody knows everything. No matter how much you’ve studied, or what you’ve learned beforehand, there will be *something* you know nothing about, but this doesn’t reflect on you personally. That’s why you’re doing research!
The way that pride usually manifests itself is that it makes you stop asking questions. When you don’t know what to do next, ask. When you don’t know why something works a particular way (or doesn’t work the way you think it should), ask. The more questions you ask, the more your project will solidify - and the more answers you’ll have when people ask *you* questions when you present your findings at project’s end.
I lost almost a month of project time because I was trying to figure out a circuit that turned out to be *significantly* less complicated than I imagined, all because I thought I needed to solve the problem independently. My mentor fixed the problem in five minutes.
2. Don’t go into any meeting without three problems you need to fix.
Maybe you’ve got a circuit component that isn’t performing the way it should. Maybe some module is dumping an infinite loop into your otherwise perfect program. Maybe everything’s working as designed, but there might be a way to make it work better. Take an objective look at your project and find the holes.
The only thing worse than going to a project meeting and having nothing to say is not showing up at all. Don’t just give an update - use this opportunity to fill those holes. Remember: this is practice for all those project meetings you’ll have on the job later. Learn the value of a productive project meeting!
3. Don’t leave your meeting without at least three deliverables for your next meeting.
If you’ve found some “holes”, make a plan to fix them and then execute them before the next meeting. When all else fails, this is how you make significant progress. Find your problems, fix them, then find some more.
4. Bug your mentor.
Don’t let a week go by without touching base with your mentor. Sure, she’s busy, and no, you’re not her only student, but she signed on to be your mentor for a reason. See item one of this list if you’re having trouble asking questions. If you can’t think of problems to solve with your project, ask if she sees any. *Ask for help*. There is some aspect of your project that will run smoother because your mentor offered some insight towards a solution.
5. Focus on your outcome.
Every couple of weeks, review your project requirements and make sure you’re on track to meet them. There’s nothing worse than finding a great solution only to discover that it doesn’t address the original problem.
If you check your requirements constantly, fix the problems that stand between where you are and the project’s resolution, and ask whenever you need help, you’ll not only have successful project results, you’ll also have learned a great deal about project management. That’s a handy skill for almost any work environment.
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- Quick update on the BSD Project
- Ubergeeke’s Projects: The PillMetric
May 15th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
#1 and #4 really speak to me. Pride is such a difficult thing to get over so much of the time. We don’t want to admit we want to ask for help.
And man oh man, if it ain’t the truth that you should bug your mentor. If they are half as good as they should be, they should be welcoming serious interest from their students. They learn to refine their own knowledge and you get the help you need so you don’t have to re-invent the wheel. This goes back to pride again, but in a different form.