Summer Research Programs for High School Students: How to Conduct Research as a High Schooler
Of all the extracurricular activities for high school students, participating in research provides perhaps the greatest number of benefits. Through their research, high school students can build up their resumés and portfolios, improve their candidacy on college applications, and discover their passions in a concentrated academic setting.
Considering the numerous demands of high school during the school year, many high school students opt for summer research programs to pursue solutions to issues that fascinate them. Conducting research over the summer––whether in a group or for a personal project—is a great way to build up your academic credibility as a high schooler.
In this blog post, we are providing tips to ambitious high school students who are interested in getting involved with summer research. This post will cover the benefits of summer research for high schoolers, methods for locating summer research opportunities, strategies for starting your own research as a high school student, and finally a short list of a few research opportunities for high school students.
What are the benefits of summer research programs for high school students?
According to CollegeVine, summer research programs are often considered a tier 1 or 2 extracurricular involvement for high schoolers and are thus supremely valuable to a student’s college application or internship prospects. Besides showing up as premium qualifications on a high school student’s resumé, other advantages of summer research programs include:
The opportunity to connect with experts in a field of interest
Mentorship from top researchers and industry professionals
Development of a student’s scientific inquiry and academic writing skills
Practice with project presentation and display
Collaboration with other high-achieving students, who might become future partners
For high school students who are just starting out in research, many summer research programs provide participants with a strong foundation in scientific methodology in addition to teaching students how to ask hard-hitting questions and craft socially impactful projects.
One example of such a program is the Inspirit AI Scholars program, which helps high school students nail down their fundamental programming skills and understand the applications of artificial intelligence before empowering them to work in small groups to develop an AI for social good project.
Overall, summer research programs can set the stage for high school students to conduct cutting-edge investigations in their field of choice by teaching them necessary skills for professional researchers and by giving them early exposure to the experience of leading their own research projects.
Finding the right summer research program as a high schooler
There is no shortage of opportunities when it comes to summer research for high school students. For high schoolers making their first foray into summer research, it can be difficult to know where to start in order to find a program that will nurture their growth as a researcher.
Luckily, there are several tools at students’ disposal that will enable them to explore a wide range of possibilities before narrowing the options down to their ideal program. A quick google search will yield several lists of summer research programs for high school students, but how is one to sift through the seemingly endless programs available?
It can be helpful for high schoolers to start by think about a series of questions related to their research interests:
In which field do you want to conduct research? Internship directories such as Forage can be helpful to explore opportunities from technology and business to fashion and real estate.
Are you looking for strictly in-person research opportunities or are you open to remote programs? If you expand your search to online summer research programs, you may be able to access research that is not offered in your local area!
What are your research goals? Are you interested in acquiring useful research skills/tools? Are you trying to prepare a research paper for submission to a science competition or research journal? Being clear about your intended takeaways/learning outcomes at the start of your search process can help to clarify what summer research program is right for you.
Of course, some students may be more unsure about where their interests lie. In these cases, high schoolers––especially underclassmen––can treat their summer research programs as a way to gauge their interest in a particular field while cultivating useful skills at the same time. Don’t be afraid to try something new and explore how more unfamiliar topics might synchronize with your other interests.
How to start your own summer research project as a high school student
Some especially ambitious and motivated students may opt to pursue personal research projects that attempt to tackle a specialized issue of unique interest to them. Typically, these kinds of projects can be a great way to demonstrate initiative as well as greater mastery of a given topic.
For instance, a high school student who is very involved with their school newspaper might create a project setting out to detect fake news as a means of addressing the concern of responsible journalism. Or what about an athlete interested in growing the popularity of their sport? What solution might they design to contribute to viewership of their sport?
Personal research projects allow high school students greater freedom in their choice of topic and give students first-hand experience in end-to-end project development. This type of research can be a great option for high school students who are more advanced in their research capabilities and have a specific idea that they want to implement.
An important factor that can be key to a high schooler’s individual research efforts is a dedicated mentor with experience in the student’s field of research. Quality mentors help students become comfortable with each step of the research process including hypothesis testing, project design, data collection and communication of results.
To identify a potential project mentor, high school students should talk to a variety of different stakeholders in their area of study, from general researchers to family friends in a related profession. Alternatively, high schoolers can apply to work with top researchers from leading universities such as Stanford and MIT for a guided one-on-one research experience.
What are some examples of summer research programs for high schoolers
To get you started on your summer research program search, here is an initial list of programs and research directories to consider.
Research Science Institute
Hosted at MIT, the Research Science Institute (RSI) invites 80 high-achieving high school students to experience the entire research cycle––from literature review to oral and written reports––in a five-week research internship geared toward high school juniors.
Research in Science and Engineering Internship
The RISE internship at Boston University allows rising high school seniors to participate in weekly workshops and pursue in research in fields as diverse as astronomy, neuroscience, and environmental science.
AI Scholars Program
Inspirit AI’s two-week AI Scholars program is a project-based learning experience in artificial intelligence that trains high school students to develop their own AI-enabled projects to tackle important social issues. Students will emerge from the program with a completed AI project as well as a certificate to mark their achievement in computer science.
