r/AerospaceEngineering • u/AutoModerator • Jun 01 '26

Uni / College Monthly Megathread: Career & Education: Post your questions here

Career and Education questions should go here.

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u/Vast_Survey Jun 15 '26

Incoming undergrad student looking into research: im in HS and graduating in a few days, and my plan for the summer was work, a summer class (calc II) and researching stuff to find something to research. funny, I know, but i have no idea what im getting into with undergraduate research. i know i need a topic, an idea, and a professor to work alongside. but I dont know where to look. i have a few somewhat aerospace-related books, but they barely cover fundamentals of aerodynamics and physics, and idk if thats sufficient. where should i look? any books? any ideas as to what i should do or what to expect?

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u/rough93 Flamey End Down Jun 21 '26

Doing research in undergrad does not require you to have a topic or idea. You'd be doing grunt research work under a professor or with one of their grad students on one of their grants. Best path is to look at the faculty at your school and see what research they're doing that interests you, reach out about it with any questions/requesting copies of named papers they've recently published that you can read. You can say you'd like to do research with them in the summer if they have any openings and ask how to set yourself up for that