- #1
Mirero
- 29
- 13
How exactly should an undergraduate approach a professor to ask about research opportunities? Would it be preferable to send an email or go talk about it during their office hours? A call perhaps?
Also, out of curiosity, is it annoying when an undergraduate wants to do research in math? In other fields, undergraduates are at least somewhat useful because they can help maintain the labs and such, even if they don’t completely know what is going on. In math, however, one can’t really do that, unless the student is some kind of Grothendieck-esque genius. It seems the knowledge of an undergraduate is so trivial that any research they could churn out would probably be unpublishable. Isn’t this sort of imposing a burden on the professor to try and manage this student, especially when he/she could be helping graduate students or be working on his/her own research?
Also, out of curiosity, is it annoying when an undergraduate wants to do research in math? In other fields, undergraduates are at least somewhat useful because they can help maintain the labs and such, even if they don’t completely know what is going on. In math, however, one can’t really do that, unless the student is some kind of Grothendieck-esque genius. It seems the knowledge of an undergraduate is so trivial that any research they could churn out would probably be unpublishable. Isn’t this sort of imposing a burden on the professor to try and manage this student, especially when he/she could be helping graduate students or be working on his/her own research?