BEFORE FILLING OUT THE APPLICATION
Volunteer on a project supervised by a professor. Talk to the professor(s) with whom you are interested in working. They cannot commit to accepting you 100% at this point; however, they are unlikely to accept you as a student during the application process unless you talk to them first. You should express your interest in doing research with them and verify that they are accepting students for the semester(s) you want.
Come up with a potential project and make sure there is a professor able to advise you on it.
Application Process
Submit a complete application to the department secretary before the deadline. All deadlines will be announced on the biology department mailing list. There will be three deadlines a year although there may be the opportunity to submit applications out of the normal cycle when a professor receives a grant and needs students quickly for a specific project.
If your project required departmental funding there are some additional steps:
- You must apply to the Student Senate for funding first.
- You must submit an application to the department chair by the announced deadlines with your professor’s approval and signature. These applications consist of a 1-2 page project summary and a complete budget. The application form can be downloaded here.
Additional Information:
The total number of credits from Independent Research and Senior Thesis that can count as upper-division electives for a biology degree is four. Additional credits can be used to satisfy full-time status and may help to satisfy upper-division credit hours for general graduation requirements.
Each credit of Independent Research requires a minimum of 45 hours of work on the project. Thus, if you register for two credits, you must complete 90 hours of work on the project during that semester.
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