Is undergraduate research worth doing?

>>8074960
Nothing separates 'undergraduate research' from 'graduate research' except a few years of reading textbooks, so yes.

>>8074961
Have you done any research? I just wanna know what it's like. I think one of my teachers is trying to make me his golden tendie boy, so I'm trying to figure out what I'd be getting myself into.

>>8074966
Not the same anon, but research is completely different depending on what field you go into. I'm an undergrad doing molecular dynamics. Doing something computational is great because in some cases you can work from home if you need. When I spend a month not getting anywhere with a simulation, though, I feel like an unproductive piece of shit.

Is undergrad research not a requirement where you go?

Do you want to go to grad school? If yes, do it. Otherwise, get a job.

>>8074966
I've done two summer research projects that didn't get particular far. It's hard, exciting, frustrating, etc. You're working on something no one else has done before and so of course you have a lot of freedom in your methods but I would just recommend doing it for the experience, don't focus so much on results

>>8074981
This.
If you want to research further, get the experience. If you are just in it for the paper, don't bother

>>8074966
>>8074960

Are you trying to get into grad school? If so it's essential.

If by "worth doing" you mean "will I get worthwhile results", the answer is almost certainly no unless you work in a large experimental group and you do enough lab monkey work to get 10th author or whatever. But it doesn't really matter either way, you have to have the experience, period. It's also a very good way to gauge whether you will like grad school or not (PhD anyway) -- it's a research degree, not a "couple of extra advanced classes" degree.

I think it's just a cool experience that you won't really have a chance to be involved with again once you graduate and get a job, and that in and of itself makes it worthwhile to me.

>>8074960
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTOz9026U0s

What field are you in?

>>8074960
I'm doing an undergraduate research project in image processing as a math major (the computer science and math departments are one in the same at my school). My work has been exclusively at home so far since I'm in the preliminary stages of gathering information (I've been summarizing papers for two weeks) but soon I will start running some matlab codes and have a pretty good idea of where I want to go.

It's definitely worth it to see what research is like and is extremely rewarding if you have the right supervisor. It has further rooted my desire to go to grad school and excitement to do math research in the future. It has also made me realize applied math would be really cool and thus making it harder to choose between pure and applied math once i get to the point of accepting offers.

>>8074974
>anon from poor country
Not apart from a final-year dissertation, because my university doesn't have the funds or the faculty. Only the very best students get the opportunity.

>>8075267
>thus making it harder to choose between pure and applied math once i get to the point of accepting offers.
Basically every department in the world has both pure and applied mathematicians you could work with.

>have undergrad research experience listed on my C.V. as per the recommendation of my professor
>don't actually have any as far as being involved in a published/completed experiment or anything
>was part of many meetings where we read over specific papers related to a study we wished to expand on
>new experiment abstract was approved and all that good stuff
>professor's mother was diagnosed with cancer for ten months before she passed away so professor was in that grieving state for well around a year, causing nothing to get done
I only state that to relay facts. I'm not personally upset with my professor or anything such and I do understand how the (impending) loss of a close parent can disrupt real life but I feel somewhat /wrong/ about having this experience listed when I haven't been as involved as many others have been. It feels like a lying/moral thing.

Are my woes unwarranted?

>>8074960

I'm tempted to give an unqualified "yes".

It's at the very least worth trying. I think my biggest mistake in undergraduate was not getting back into research after the professor I was working with left my before my junior year. There's a ton of pros to doing it. Plus, you get to have a faculty member that knows more about how to navigate the field looking out for you. That way you don't waste time learning things you don't really need.

Is that a young Elliot Rodger?

>>8075670
See: >>8075021

>>8075618
If there was some sort of (national/etc.) competition to get funding for this research definitely list that grant name and amount

I've also never published anything but it's the experience that counts, and it sounds like you legitimately did get some from the meetings and abstract being approved.

You could also just briefly outline what was actually done (reading over papers and getting experiment approval)