Independent study: Independent research means making a commitment to a project and increasingly working independently. It is not like a regular course, in that there may not be set hours each day or in a week that you are required to be somewhere working on the project. Once you design the project, you must carry it out, which may mean working long and odd hours. Each project has a planning stage, a preliminary experiment/observation stage, a main experiment/observation stage, an analytical stage and a report writing stage. This may require a commitment of two semesters. Sometimes you will work with other undergraduates; sometimes with a supervising graduate student. So you may be part of a team and would need to work well with others. Conducting a research project can be very rewarding if you approach it as a commitment (to yourself, to the project, etc.) rather than as just another course and means to get a letter of recommendation. Currently, I am only working with students on science education projects.
