Best research area for an undergrad

[mjordan2nd]

Hello,

I am an undergraduate student looking to get into research. My school offers many opportunities for undergraduate research, however I do not know which field to go into. I've been told I can get into virtually whatever I want to, however my goal is to get a paper published to increase my chances for getting into graduate school. As an undergraduate, which fields can I make any real meaningful contributions to where I may have a chance in getting a paper published.

Thanks.

 

[fss]

Talk to the professors you may be working with. There is no universal answer anyone on this board can give you.

 

[micromass]

Maybe you should consider giving some background information... What are you majoring in? What did you like to study? What didn't you like at all? Which courses did you score good in? etc...

We really can't say anything without you telling us some more about you. For all I know, you may be majoring in philosophy...

 

[gb7nash]

What kind of math do you like? This isn't really a question we can answer without knowing what you're into.

 

[Simfish]

Well, it generally does seem easiest when you're doing computational stuff (professors who have lots of computational stuff do seem more willing to take anyone who asks, and publishing is also easiest for computational things, especially for someone with an undergrad knowledge set. Sometimes, you can get published even when the program you're using is still a black box to you).

Astronomy is probably the easiest field to get research in (in my department, pretty much anyone who asks will get research, and there are a lot of mediocre students in the department). It's also one of the easiest to get published in too (as 10th author out of 40, perhaps, though not as 1st out of 5).