Getting into EE research

Thread Starter

Clueless101

Joined Jun 5, 2014
1
I'm about to enter my third year of electrical and computer engineering and I'd like to get into research in order to get more hands on practice. However, I'm intimidated with professors and graduate students because I don't fully understand their research and feel as if I'll be in the way. In general, is undergraduate research encouraged in engineering? Or,in other words, do faculty mind that undergraduate students look on their research? And about how many hours of research would you say is acceptable for a student per week?
 

Sparky49

Joined Jul 16, 2011
833
If you're unsure what your profs do, search them on the ieee website. Think what really interests you, find and read papers on it, and make enquiries with people. Just really talk to people as much as you can.

I can't imagine anyone would begrudge a student some help if you send a well written, personalised (ie referring to some of their past papers) email.

I'm a first year, who's dead keen on antenna design. I've had a chat with someone at my uni who does antenna design too, and got to pitch an idea I had for some research. We are now working together to get a paper published. :)

Sparky
 

kubeek

Joined Sep 20, 2005
5,794
..I'd like to get into research in order to get more hands on practice..
I think you might be on the wrong track here, in my eyes research is 95% theoretical work and the remaining 5% are the practical demonstration of those theories. Moreover, what field of EE do you wish to explore? I am sure you know it is a very wide field, but I think most of todays research is about new materials and manufacturing techniques rather than new fundamental principles.
 
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