Struggle in undergraduate research

Voluntarily choosing a research project to work on, in a laboratory or field site during your graduation or masters will give you a really hard time. Considering that you have to complete your academic assignments and presentations along with coping with the college attendance. I understand that you are not confident enough yet and your college assignments have a deadline to meet while it is also important to perform well academically for your parents and future job opportunities. But let me tell you one thing, studying in Indian private universities will produce puppets out of you, only suitable for picking up calls and answering for your superior. This will only lead to brain drain specifically in developing country. The four- five years of your undergraduate/masters life are stepping stones to your future and you would only be making the best out of them from the lab or field experience you gain  in becoming a successful researcher or a conservationist, environmentalist, climate change expert so on and so forth , the opportunities are vast. 

The first step is to figure out the area of research you are interested in working in or are even just curious to know about. It can be anything; there is no hard and fast rule that it should be related to the subjects you’re being taught. Today researchers are working on implementing an interdisciplinary approach. Your field of interest can be anything from oils, nutrition, turtle, wolf, big cats, squirrels, cancer, metabolic engineering, statistics, robotics etc. The next question or hurdle is to simply start working on your area of interest; which will be difficult if you are not an avid reader and have no clue how to start. The easiest way to start is to download science and business related applications like science today, business today and UN news to stay up to date about the happenings in your area of interest or areas affecting it, from around the world. Documentaries are one of the most efficient ways to enhance your knowledge and find out about your area of interest. 

Here are the some links which you can refer to. 

1. http://www.vice.com/en_us

2. http://www.un.org/news/

3. https://www.sciencedaily.com/

4. http://www.calacademy.org/explore-science/science-today

5. http://surj.stanford.edu/

6. http://www.studentpulse.com/

The next step is to conduct secondary research and design a rough research hypothesis which usually changes with the evolution of the project. You don`t have to worry about making mistakes because you are just an undergraduate student and that’s how you’re going to learn. In the next article, i will be discussing more about the steps involved in developing your first research article, project or scientific note as an undergraduate student.

Think wild and free. Be Creative. 

 Cheers :)