My research “group” is necessarily going to include undergrads. I say “necessarily” because it really is expected, but I’d want them around anyway. The trouble with that is that I need to come up with research projects that they can reasonably expect to contribute to… possibly with a very small time commitment (say, 3 hours a week for a 14-week semester).
Small time commitment means that they can’t spend a couple months learning MATLAB, or how to keep an optical system aligned. It also means that they need to be able to do the experiments, once they learn how, in a fairly short time frame.
Other faculty handle this by giving new undergrads synthetic projects to do. (Synthetic = “making stuff”, not “artificial versus natural”.) “You are the latest in a long line of undergrads who have worked on compounds very similar to this one, 3 of whom are still around in the lab for you to ask for help, and all you really need to do is mix A & B together, boil it for a while, and then watch your pretty orange crystals form.” All this using skills which they’ve already learned in a class.
I can’t rely on students learning the relevant skills in a class – not because the classes aren’t good, but because they won’t take the right class (my class!) until they’re seniors, typically, and I’d like to open the door for students who aren’t seniors yet.
I’ve got some plans, it’s just going to take a while for them to start unfolding. That’s true no matter what, of course, but after sitting on some of this stuff for two years now, I’d really like to see it hatch Real Soon Now…
