Undergraduate Research

Are you interested in getting involved in research?

Undergraduate students are encouraged to participate in research while at BU and there are a variety of mechanisms for doing so.

Note that these mechanisms are not mutually exclusive (e.g., a UROP summer project could lead into an Honors Thesis).

There are also a variety of potential outcomes for research projects, ranging from short stand-alone projects that allow one to gain experience and explore new ideas, to more involved projects (often spanning over more than one semester) that might lead to opportunities to co-author papers, present at scientific conferences, or engage with external partners (e.g., government, industry, non-profits). Finally, it is never too early or too late to get engaged with research! While some faculty may have specific technical prerequisites to do work in their labs, others are eager to recruit students early that might work with them over multiple years.

UROP

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) at BU provides stipends to undergraduate students on a competitive basis.

Summer Research Awards: 20-40 hours/week over 10 weeks. Also includes coordinated summer professional development and social activities and an early Fall poster session.

Semester Stipends: 5-10 hours/week over the semester

Work with a faculty mentor to prepare a research proposal and submit an application (see below for more info about reaching out to mentors). Deadlines are in September, December, and March for the Fall, Spring, and Summer stipends respectively.

In addition to being a source of funding, UROP also maintains a database of postings about on-campus research opportunities with faculty. Postings include information about whether the faculty mentor is looking for UROP funded students, directed study (i.e. academic credit), have independent funding or work-study, or is looking for volunteers.

Directed Study (i.e. research for credit)

You can enroll in directed study undergraduate courses (EE 491 and/or EE 492) aimed at giving you hands-on research experience for course credit that count toward your degree.  Depending on scope, such projects can range from 1 to 6 credits during a semester and up to 4 credits can be counted as a major elective.  Directed studies can be arranged up to the last day to add courses in the semester. Note that directed studies are intended to allow students to pursue topics not normally covered in the curriculum, or to dive deeper into a topic covered in a previous course, but cannot be used to substitute for existing courses. In some cases, directed studies can also be done in conjunction with external internships (e.g., providing credit for additional reading, writing, and reflection in conjunction with an on-campus faculty mentor). In all cases, when pursuing research for credit students are expected to make a genuine intellectual contribution to their research project – unlike paid positions or volunteering, one cannot receive Directed Study credit for work as a technician or lab/field assistant.

If you are interested in a directed study you should:

1. Find a faculty mentor: Reach out to faculty you would be interested working with and discussed your proposed topic with them
2. Develop a proposal: Fill out all three sections on the Undergraduate Directed Study Application with your supervising faculty mentor.
3. Send the application to the E&E Dept Chair for their approval (and CC your mentor and Sayaka)
4. Submit the signed application to CAS Advising, casadv@bu.edu  (and CC your mentor and Sayaka)
5. Register for your mentor’s section of EE491 or EE492. Reach out to Sayaka for help with this if it is not done automatically by CAS Advising.

Honors Thesis

Beyond an individual directed study, students past their 4th semester who maintain a minimum GPA of 3.0 can sign up to do a Honors thesis with a faculty mentor. The key expectations for the honors thesis are:

1. Submit the Honors application with their faculty mentor and two additional thesis committee members (of the student’s choosing). Applications are due Nov 15 for projects starting in the Spring and May 15th for projects starting in the Fall. 
2. Two semesters of thesis-specific research EE401/402. Directed studies (EE491/492) cannot retroactively be converted into honors semesters.
3. Complete a written thesis of ~25 or more pages, including figures and tables, and at least 25 citations
4. An oral presentation of the thesis followed by a thesis defense meeting with your advisor and committee
5. Attend four department-sponsored seminars, chosen in consultation with your advisor, during the year of your project

Like directed studies, up to 4 honors thesis credit hours can be counted as EAP or EES major electives.

Honors thesis students are also eligible to apply for Honors Research Travel awards to conduct research (e.g. field work) or present research at conferences. 

Paid Positions and Work Study

Professors generally support their research activity through grants (e.g., from governmental agencies like NSF and NASA).

Sometimes, professors will carve out some funding from these grants to support undergraduate research assistants. These may be advertised, or you may need to inquire on a case-by-case basis. It never hurts to reach out and ask, though securing external federal funding has been tough recently.

When reaching out to faculty about such positions it is also helpful to indicate whether you’ve been awarded Work-Study financial aid. Some professors may be better able to support a research position if you’ve been awarded Work-Study financial aid, as they only have to cover 30% of the cost for on-campus positions or 50% for off-campus positions (e.g. summer field work).

Volunteering

You could offer to volunteer to gain experience. Please reach out to faculty mentors to learn about their policy on taking volunteers. Volunteering can provide a path to other opportunities down the road.

Contacting Faculty

One of the most daunting parts for many students when launching a research project is reaching out to faculty as potential mentors. Don’t worry, they don’t bite! Indeed, mentoring students is an important and rewarding part of their job. That said, faculty time and resources are finite, and many faculty already have large numbers of mentees at the PhD, MS, and BA levels, so not all will be able to accommodate your requests. 

Here are a few hints to make the process of finding a mentor less painful and more successful

• Check the UROP listing of research opportunities posted by faculty
• We are experimenting with launching a spreadsheet summarizing E&E faculty looking to mentor students
• Come to the Research Bites seminar series to better get to know faculty and their research.
• When emailing a professor it’s good to include:
  • Your resume and info about relevant coursework or other experiences
  • What general topics are of interest to you
  • What sort of opportunities you are looking for (UROP, course credit, paid, volunteer)
  • When you are looking to start (Immediately? Next semester?) 
  • What type of project you are looking for (lab work, field work, computational, remote sensing / GIS, synthesis / meta-analysis)
• Finding a research project is always a balance of finding a topic that is of mutual interest to you and your mentor. It is helpful to come with ideas, but also to be open to learning about what different labs specialize in and where they might need help as part of ongoing research projects. For Directed Study or Honors in particular it is critical that students make genuine intellectual contributions to a project, but at the same time that doesn’t mean that the student has to generate all of the ideas.

Mentoring Expectations

For all forms of faculty-guided research mentoring, there is an expectation that students and mentors establish a regular meeting time to discuss research projects. In some cases faculty may invite their undergraduate mentees to regularly-scheduled lab group meetings, but such meetings should not take the place of direct mentoring. Similarly, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in a mentor’s lab may play an active role in co-mentoring an undergraduate, but undergraduate mentees should not be reporting primarily to such a co-mentor for on-campus research experiences or for off-campus experiences where the faculty is available physically or virtually. Mentoring expectations during remote field experiences should be laid out clearly ahead of time.