As someone who has just completed their fifth semester of undergraduate research, I think it goes without saying that the experience is invaluable for gaining a stronger grasp of and learning how to push the frontiers of knowledge in your research field. Not only does this give you a leg up on the competition when applying for jobs and graduate programs, but it also helps you to grow as a person and gives you a deeper appreciation for researchers who have come before you and who may come after you.
That said, I think the most important thing I’ve learned and would tell others to keep in mind is to be prepared for (and perhaps even welcome) failure; the chances that you will carry out your research exactly as you planned it, and obtain exactly the results that you expected, are almost nil in most cases. However, don’t be discouraged by this; this is simply how science is done.
Indeed, at the beginning of my CURF, I had a list of goals that I hoped to achieve by the end of the semester. However, now that the end of the semester is almost here, I’ve only managed to achieve a fraction of those goals. The takeaway here is that research is hard — reading relevant papers, conducting experiments, and sifting through data is a very time-consuming and laborious process that requires both discipline and a great deal of intrinsic motivation. Without both of these things, it’s unlikely that you’ll get any meaningful research done.
Now that my CURF is over, my next steps are to continue improving both my skillset as well as my mindset as a researcher. Having spent the past few months working on deep learning models, I realized I need to shore up my understanding of the statistical and mathematical concepts underlying modern machine learning techniques. What’s more, I need to do a better job of reviewing relevant literature before undertaking a study, rather than consulting papers on-the-fly as I run into issues.
Nevertheless, my CURF has been a tremendously valuable experience which has taught me a great deal about how to conduct research in computer science. As someone who hopes to become a university professor of cognitive science, I’m eager to combine this experience from my CURF with my past research experience in psychology to ultimately conduct research that bridges these two fields, using computational approaches to help unravel the mysteries of the mind.