Research Experience for Grad School

[Brian T]

Hello all,

just a quick question. In terms of gaining research experience for applying to physics grad school, does the research experience necessarily have to be in a lab? Would only independent research (but supervised) be worse than actually lab experience?

Thanks for your input,
Brian

 

[Choppy]

It doesn't have to be in a lab.

A lot can lie in the details though. Research potential (which is what graduate admission committees are interested in) is evaluated primarily through the comments in reference letters and perhaps other evidence such as academic publications or conference abstracts if you happen to have those.

So any kind of productive research project that is supervised by someone who is in a position to evaluate your potential for graduate school is going to be of value.

The only thing to be concerned about is that if you're off doing some project on your own and just talking to a professor occasionally about it, that might not cut it.

 

[Brian T]

It doesn't have to be in a lab.

A lot can lie in the details though. Research potential (which is what graduate admission committees are interested in) is evaluated primarily through the comments in reference letters and perhaps other evidence such as academic publications or conference abstracts if you happen to have those.

So any kind of productive research project that is supervised by someone who is in a position to evaluate your potential for graduate school is going to be of value.

The only thing to be concerned about is that if you're off doing some project on your own and just talking to a professor occasionally about it, that might not cut it.

Thank you. I plan on building up to an honors thesis so hopefully that will be good enough