How do researchers typically come up with their first research topic?

[preceptor1919]

This question just out of curiosity,

How did you guys think of what your 1st research will be about? Because there are so many researches out there and many discoveries have been made, how did you come up with a topic of your own?
PS, not sure if this is the right place to post this but I thought this might help someone someday :)

 

[f95toli]

I didn't, my first contact with real research was when I was doing my MSc project. I had previously taken a course in thin-film technology which I liked and the lecturer was looking for MSc students for a couple of projects and I applied to one of them.

It is extremely rare for students to come with topics on their own. In fact, you do not get "full freedom" until you become a senior researcher and even then you have to convince someone to fund your research, which usually means staying within the parameters/topics outlined in the call for research proposal.

As you progress through your career you get more and more control over your research, but what usually happens is that the projects evolve gradually, you .e.g develop a technique in one project and you then realized that this techniques would be useful for studying something else etc; after a few years you might find yourself in a very different area. There is rarely any need to actively look for unsolved problems,. you usually just sort of stumble across them while researching something else.