Learn what undergraduate research is, what student researchers actually do, how laboratories work, and how research can help premed students prepare for medical school.
What Is Undergraduate Research, and What Do Student Researchers Do?
If you are anything like I was before college, your understanding of scientific research may come mostly from movies. I pictured something resembling a scene from Jurassic Park, where scientists in white coats mixed brightly colored chemicals together and suddenly made an enormous discovery that changed the world.
That was honestly how I understood research until I arrived at college and began asking more practical questions. What is scientific research actually like? What does undergraduate research mean? What would I be expected to do in a laboratory when I had no previous experience? Would someone hand me an important project, or would I spend all of my time washing dishes and following other people around?
If you have similar questions, that is completely normal. Many students reach college without ever seeing how academic research works, and the process can feel particularly confusing when other premed students already seem to know how to contact professors, join laboratories, attend conferences, and publish papers.
I was in the group that had not been meaningfully introduced to research before college. If you are still in high school or early in your first year and are already trying to understand it, you are ahead of where I was.
Undergraduate research means participating in the process of investigating a question while you are completing an associate or bachelor’s degree. You may work in a laboratory, hospital, clinic, psychology department, public health program, engineering team, or another academic setting. The exact experience varies enormously depending on the field, university, project, and mentor.
I ultimately worked in two basic science research laboratories for multiple years during undergrad, and research became one of the most valuable parts of my premed experience. It taught me experimental design, patience, scientific writing, teamwork, and how to continue working when an experiment repeatedly failed. It also connected me with mentors, allowed me to attend conferences for poster and oral presentations, contributed to publishing my research in a journal, and helped me explore whether an MD-PhD career might be right for me.
Research did not look like a dramatic movie scene. Much of it involved repeating experiments, troubleshooting, reading papers, waiting for results, and learning from people who knew much more than I did. That process was exactly what made the experience valuable.
What Does Undergraduate Research Mean?
Undergraduate research is a structured or mentored scholarly experience in which a college student contributes to answering a question, testing a hypothesis, analyzing evidence, or creating new knowledge.
The work may be scientific, clinical, computational, behavioral, historical, educational, or creative. A biology student may grow cells or study a signaling pathway, while a psychology student may recruit participants and analyze survey data. A public health researcher might examine population-level outcomes, and a humanities student might work with archives, interviews, texts, or historical records.
This is important because many premed students hear the word “research” and assume that it must involve a wet laboratory, test tubes, animals, or molecular biology. Basic science research is only one form of undergraduate research.
Medical schools can value many kinds of scholarly work because the transferable skills are often similar. You are learning how to ask good questions, find and evaluate evidence, follow a method, respond to uncertainty, communicate findings, and recognize the limitations of your conclusions.
What Does an Undergraduate Researcher Actually Do?
You will almost certainly not be given expensive equipment and an independent project on your first day. Most students begin with training, observation, background reading, and relatively basic responsibilities because research teams need to know that you can work safely, reliably, and carefully.
Your first responsibilities might include preparing materials, labeling samples, entering data, cleaning equipment, maintaining cell cultures, recruiting study participants, organizing files, reviewing charts, conducting literature searches, or learning a laboratory technique.
These tasks may seem small, but some of them are necessary parts of training. You cannot run a complicated experiment independently before learning how to pipette accurately, handle samples safely, maintain organized records, and follow a protocol.
The distinction I would make is between completing foundational work that teaches you how the research operates and remaining indefinitely in a role where no one is helping you develop. It is reasonable to spend months learning. It is less encouraging to remain in a laboratory for a year while doing only repetitive support tasks with no explanation of the larger project, no increasing responsibility, and no opportunity to understand the science.
A good undergraduate research experience should gradually move you from following instructions toward understanding why those instructions exist. Over time, you should learn how your work connects with the research question, how the data will be interpreted, what can go wrong, and what the next experiment or analysis is trying to accomplish.
Who Works in a Research Laboratory?
A research team is generally led by a principal investigator, commonly called the PI. The PI is usually a faculty member responsible for the laboratory’s research direction, funding, personnel, and major projects.
Depending on the university and amount of funding, the team may also include graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, staff scientists, research coordinators, laboratory technicians, master’s students, medical students, residents, fellows, and other undergraduate researchers.
At smaller universities or laboratories with less funding, the team may consist primarily of the PI and several undergraduates. At a large research institution, a laboratory may include more than ten people, many of whom have graduate or professional degrees.
This difference can affect the undergraduate experience. In a small laboratory, you may work directly with the professor but have fewer active projects and fewer people available to train you. In a larger laboratory, you may have access to more equipment and projects but work primarily with a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, or staff scientist rather than the PI.
Neither structure is automatically better. The most important question is whether someone has the time and interest to teach you.
In my laboratories, I worked with other undergraduate students, master’s students, and PhD-level researchers. Learning how to function within that team was one of the reasons the experience felt directly applicable to medicine. I had to communicate, accept feedback, coordinate responsibilities, ask for help, and contribute to a project that was much larger than my individual role.
What Is a Principal Investigator?
The principal investigator is the person who leads the laboratory or research group. The PI develops major research questions, applies for grants, manages funding, supervises personnel, reviews data, and helps decide which projects the team will pursue.
The amount of direct contact you have with the PI can vary considerably. Some professors meet regularly with every undergraduate and are directly involved in teaching them how to read papers, design experiments, prepare posters, and write manuscripts. Others primarily supervise graduate students or postdoctoral researchers who then train the undergraduates.
A famous PI with a large research program may offer excellent resources but have very little time to interact with you. A less prominent professor may meet with you every week, teach you how to write, and gradually allow you to lead a project. For an undergraduate student, the second arrangement can sometimes provide a much stronger educational experience.
This is why choosing the right mentor is at least as important as choosing an exciting research topic. My full guide on how to find a mentor as a premed explains how to evaluate professors, talk with current laboratory members, and determine whether a mentoring style fits what you need.
What Are the Different Types of Undergraduate Research?
Basic science research examines biological, chemical, physical, or molecular mechanisms. This is the type of research most closely associated with traditional laboratory images. You may work with cells, bacteria, animal models, proteins, genes, tissues, or chemical compounds.
Clinical research studies questions involving patients, diagnoses, treatments, outcomes, or healthcare delivery. An undergraduate student may enter data, review medical records, recruit participants, conduct surveys, help manage study visits, or assist with statistical analysis.
Translational research tries to connect laboratory discoveries with patient care. You may hear this described as moving findings from the bench to the bedside, although the process can also move in the opposite direction when clinical observations generate new laboratory questions.
Public health and epidemiology research examine health patterns among populations. These projects may focus on disease prevalence, disparities, environmental exposures, prevention, policy, or access to healthcare.
Psychology and behavioral research may involve surveys, interviews, experiments, observational studies, cognitive testing, or data analysis. Humanities, education, engineering, computer science, sociology, economics, and many other departments also offer meaningful undergraduate research opportunities.
You do not need to choose a project simply because it sounds medically impressive. A research topic that genuinely holds your attention is usually easier to remain committed to over several years. My guide on choosing a research area can help you compare different types of research and decide which field fits your interests.
What Happens During Your First Months in a Research Lab?
A strong laboratory will generally begin by teaching you the background, safety procedures, expectations, and methods necessary to contribute.
You may receive papers published by the laboratory or other researchers in the field. You probably will not understand every term or method, particularly when you are just beginning. That is normal. Read for the larger question, write down unfamiliar concepts, and prepare questions for the person training you.
In a basic science laboratory, your technical training might involve pipetting, preparing media, growing bacterial cultures, running gels, performing polymerase chain reaction experiments, completing Western blots, maintaining cells, dissecting animal models, or using specialized equipment.
In a clinical or behavioral project, training may involve patient privacy, informed consent, chart review procedures, survey administration, database management, recruitment scripts, statistical software, or standardized interviewing.
Pay close attention during this stage. These foundational skills can transfer to future projects and laboratories, and your reliability during training will influence how much independence the team is willing to give you.
You will make mistakes. The goal is not to pretend you already know everything. The goal is to ask questions, document what you learn, avoid hiding errors, and demonstrate that you can improve after receiving feedback.
When Should You Receive Your Own Research Project?
After an initial training period, you should ideally begin contributing to an active project. You may be assigned to help a graduate student or staff member, join an ongoing experiment, analyze part of a dataset, or take responsibility for a smaller question within a larger study.
The timeline varies. Some students can begin contributing meaningfully within several weeks, while highly technical laboratories may require several months of training. During my original description of the process, I estimated that three to six months of focused training was a reasonable possibility in many basic science laboratories, although the exact time depends on the methods and how frequently you work.
The important point is that your responsibilities should gradually expand. You should begin understanding the hypothesis, the purpose of each experiment, how the data are interpreted, and what the project is trying to establish.
Eventually, a strong undergraduate researcher may help troubleshoot experiments, analyze results, prepare figures, contribute to an abstract, present a poster, assist with manuscript writing, or propose a small subproject.
This progression does not happen automatically. You often need to demonstrate reliability and ask for opportunities to become more involved. A simple question such as, “Could you help me understand how this experiment connects with the larger project?” can open the door to a more thoughtful conversation.
What Was My Undergraduate Research Experience Like?
I worked in two basic science research laboratories for multiple years during college. Those experiences gave me a much more realistic understanding of what science looks like than I ever could have gained from a course alone.
Research taught me that failure is a normal part of the process. Experiments do not always work, bacteria may fail to grow, equipment can malfunction, samples can become unusable, and a result may look completely different from what you expected. Sometimes you repeat the same experiment over several days or weeks only to discover that you need to change the protocol and begin again.
That experience helped me learn how to tolerate frustration and continue working through trial and error. Rather than seeing every unsuccessful experiment as evidence that I was bad at research, I gradually learned to treat the outcome as information. Something had happened, and my job was to work with the team to determine why.
I also learned how experiments are designed and why scientific conclusions require careful controls, repeated trials, appropriate comparisons, and honest acknowledgment of limitations. Those lessons became directly relevant to how I later thought about medical evidence and patient care.
The laboratories gave me mentors who helped guide me through career decisions. I was exploring the possibility of MD-PhD training, and being surrounded by PhD students and researchers helped me understand what the research side of that career would actually look like. It was helpful to see the daily work, the long timelines, the collaborative environment, and the persistence required to complete a project.
My research also led to opportunities to attend conferences, give poster and oral presentations, and publish work in a journal. Those outcomes were exciting, but they were not the only reason the experience mattered. The process of becoming more independent, learning to communicate scientific ideas, and working with a team was at least as important.
Is Undergraduate Research Helpful for Medical School?
Research can be extremely helpful for a medical school application, particularly when it is sustained and you can explain what you contributed and learned. It can demonstrate intellectual curiosity, scientific reasoning, resilience, teamwork, communication, and the ability to commit to a long-term project.
However, research is not a universal requirement for every medical school. Its importance depends partly on the programs you are targeting. Research-intensive schools and MD-PhD programs will generally place greater emphasis on scholarly experience than schools whose missions are centered primarily on community service, primary care, rural medicine, or clinical training.
Research should also not replace essential patient-facing and service experiences. A student with extensive research but almost no clinical exposure may still struggle to explain why they want to become a physician rather than a scientist.
The strongest role for research is to complement the rest of your development. It can help you understand how medical knowledge is created while your clinical experiences show you how that knowledge affects individual patients.
I recently wrote a more focused guide answering whether being a research assistant is helpful for medical school. That article explains how research can influence mentorship, recommendation letters, AMCAS activities, presentations, publications, teamwork, and intellectual curiosity.
Do You Need a Publication for Medical School?
You do not need a publication to apply successfully to medical school. Publications depend on many factors that an undergraduate student cannot control, including the type of project, available funding, study timeline, journal review process, laboratory productivity, and authorship practices.
Some projects take several years to reach publication. You may perform excellent work on a study that is still ongoing when you submit your application. Another student may join a project shortly before a manuscript is completed and receive authorship relatively quickly.
Medical schools should therefore evaluate more than whether your name appears on a paper. You should be able to explain the question, your responsibilities, the methods, the results available so far, and what you learned.
A publication can certainly strengthen an application, especially when your contribution was substantial, but it should not be the only way you measure whether the experience was worthwhile.
How Does Authorship Work in Undergraduate Research?
Authorship generally means that you made a meaningful intellectual or practical contribution to a scholarly paper and participated appropriately in preparing or approving the work. The exact standards and author order vary among fields and research groups.
In many biomedical sciences, the first author is often the person who performed a large portion of the primary work and manuscript preparation, while the final author is frequently the principal investigator or senior leader of the project. Middle authors may have contributed experiments, analysis, writing, resources, or other important work.
You should not assume that spending a certain number of hours in a laboratory automatically guarantees authorship. At the same time, a mentor should communicate expectations clearly and give meaningful contributors appropriate credit.
When you are considering a laboratory, ask current students whether undergraduates have presented posters, contributed to abstracts, or earned authorship. This does not guarantee that you will receive the same outcomes, but it can show whether the mentor has a history of helping students progress.
My guide on how to write a research paper for publication explains the process in more detail once you reach that stage.
Can Undergraduate Researchers Present at Conferences?
Yes, undergraduate students can present research at university symposia, regional meetings, national conferences, and professional society events. Your presentation may take the form of a poster, short oral presentation, abstract, or research talk.
Conferences allow you to practice explaining your work to people who were not involved in the project. You may receive useful questions, learn about related research, meet other students and scientists, and better understand how your small contribution fits within the larger field.
My own undergraduate research allowed me to attend conferences for both poster and oral presentations, and those experiences helped me become more comfortable communicating technical information. They also gave me a clearer sense of how research communities exchange ideas and build on one another’s work.
Ask your mentor whether the laboratory attends conferences and whether undergraduate students are encouraged to submit abstracts. Some universities also offer travel grants that can help cover registration, lodging, transportation, or poster-printing costs.
You can continue with my guides on how to create a scientific research poster and how to prepare for an oral research presentation when an opportunity becomes available.
Is Undergraduate Research Paid?
Some undergraduate research positions are paid, while others offer academic credit, volunteer experience, or a combination of these arrangements.
Funding depends on the university, laboratory budget, grant restrictions, summer program, and type of work. Many students begin by volunteering because the laboratory is investing significant time in training them, but unpaid work should not be treated as the only legitimate path into research.
Universities may offer work-study positions, departmental fellowships, summer research stipends, independent-study credit, or undergraduate research grants. National summer research programs can also provide stipends, housing, travel support, or other assistance.
I participated in summer research programs at other universities, and those opportunities allowed me to experience different research environments while continuing to develop my skills. Programs like these can be especially helpful when your home institution has limited research funding or relatively few laboratories in your area of interest.
My Premed Scholarships and Paid Research Internship Programs Database collects many of these opportunities in one place, while my guide to premed summer research programs and research experiences can help you search for structured summer positions.
Do not be embarrassed to ask whether a position is paid or offers credit. Your time has value, and not every student can afford to volunteer for ten or fifteen hours each week. A supportive mentor should understand that students have different financial circumstances.
How Many Hours a Week Does Undergraduate Research Require?
The weekly commitment varies considerably. Some laboratories may ask for five to ten hours during the semester, while others prefer students who can contribute fifteen or more hours. Summer programs may be full-time.
Basic science experiments can require larger blocks of uninterrupted time because a protocol may take several hours and cannot always be paused between classes. Clinical, computational, or literature-based projects may offer greater scheduling flexibility, although deadlines and team meetings still matter.
Be honest with yourself about your schedule. Research can be valuable, but it should not repeatedly damage your grades or prevent you from maintaining your other essential commitments.
It is usually better to promise eight dependable hours and consistently provide them than to promise fifteen and repeatedly cancel. Laboratories invest time in training students, and reliability is one of the qualities mentors value most.
How Long Should You Stay in a Research Lab?
Research becomes more meaningful as you move beyond basic training and begin contributing intellectually. For that reason, remaining involved for several semesters or multiple years can be particularly valuable.
During the first year, you may spend much of your time learning techniques, reading papers, and helping with established projects. During the second year, you may become more independent and begin troubleshooting or analyzing results. By the third or fourth year, you may be able to lead a subproject, mentor newer students, prepare manuscripts, or help shape future experiments.
That was the progression I hoped for in my own research experiences. As the technical work became more familiar, I wanted to spend more time thinking about the underlying questions, writing about the findings, and contributing to the direction of the project.
However, you should not remain indefinitely in a harmful or stagnant environment simply because longevity looks good. If you are still performing only basic tasks after a long period, no one explains the larger project, and there is no realistic path toward growth, it may be reasonable to look for a stronger fit.
How to Know Whether a Research Lab Is a Good Fit
A good laboratory does not need to promise you a publication or independent project immediately. It should, however, offer a believable path toward learning and increasing responsibility.
Ask whether someone will train you, how often the team meets, who will supervise your daily work, what projects are active, how undergraduates typically progress, and whether students have opportunities to present or write.
You should also ask current or former students what the environment is like. Find out whether questions are welcomed, mistakes are handled constructively, expectations are clear, and students remain in the laboratory for several semesters.
The prestige of the institution or professor should not be your only consideration. A well-known laboratory where no one has time to teach you may provide less growth than a smaller group where the PI knows you personally and helps you develop.
A research mentor may eventually write one of your strongest recommendation letters because they have seen how you respond to failure, accept feedback, work with a team, and become more independent. That relationship is difficult to build when you rarely interact with the person leading the laboratory.
Warning Signs in an Undergraduate Research Position
Training often involves repetitive work, and not every day in a laboratory will feel intellectually exciting. You may need to prepare solutions, clean equipment, enter data, or repeat an experiment many times. Those responsibilities are not automatically warning signs.
I would become concerned when months pass and no one helps you understand the purpose of the work, there is no plan for increasing your responsibility, questions are discouraged, mistakes are handled through humiliation, expectations change without explanation, or students routinely contribute without receiving appropriate recognition.
You should also be cautious when a mentor promises immediate authorship before seeing your work. Research outcomes are difficult to predict, and guarantees like that may not reflect a healthy or honest process.
A good mentor should be able to explain what you are likely to do during the first semester and how students generally progress if they demonstrate reliability.
How to Find an Undergraduate Research Position
Begin by identifying fields that interest you and searching the faculty pages of relevant departments. Read the laboratory descriptions and several recent publications so you can understand the general questions each professor studies.
You do not need to understand every method in the paper. Look at the title, abstract, figures, and discussion, then identify one or two parts that genuinely interest you.
When you contact a professor, explain who you are, why their work caught your attention, what you hope to learn, and how much time you can realistically commit. Attach a résumé and request a short meeting rather than asking them to make a decision based solely on your email.
My complete guide on how to email a professor about research includes templates, subject lines, examples, follow-up advice, and the strategy I used when contacting potential laboratories.
You can also use my free premed résumé template when preparing your materials.
What If You Have No Research Experience?
You are not expected to arrive in your first laboratory already knowing how to conduct research. The purpose of undergraduate research is to learn.
You can still make yourself a stronger candidate by demonstrating that you are reliable, curious, prepared, and willing to remain involved. Read about the professor’s work, explain why it interests you, and be honest about the skills you hope to develop.
Coursework, laboratory classes, employment, volunteering, coding, statistics, writing, and other experiences may give you transferable skills even when they were not formal research positions.
Do not claim expertise you do not have. Most mentors would rather work with a student who is honest and eager to learn than someone who exaggerates their experience and becomes difficult to train.
What Skills Do Undergraduate Researchers Develop?
Research teaches far more than laboratory techniques. It can help you learn how to read scientific papers, ask focused questions, interpret evidence, analyze data, communicate uncertainty, organize long-term projects, and work within a multidisciplinary team.
It also teaches you how to fail productively. This was one of the most valuable parts of my experience. Research rarely follows a smooth path from question to discovery. Experiments fail, hypotheses are unsupported, timelines change, and findings may be much less dramatic than expected.
Learning to respond calmly, troubleshoot the problem, seek feedback, and try again is useful far beyond the laboratory. Medicine also requires people who can function when information is incomplete and outcomes are not fully under their control.
Research gave me opportunities to work alongside undergraduates, master’s students, PhD students, and experienced scientists. That teamwork helped me become more comfortable asking questions, receiving criticism, and contributing to a shared goal.
How to Get More Out of Undergraduate Research
Do not limit your involvement to completing whatever task appears on the schedule. Read the laboratory’s papers, attend meetings, ask how your experiment fits into the larger project, and volunteer to help prepare presentations or analyze results.
Keep detailed notes about your methods, mistakes, changes, and findings. Research moves slowly, and it is easy to forget why a decision was made several months earlier.
Ask for feedback and make it visible that you applied it. Mentors are more likely to give you additional responsibility when they see that you listen carefully and improve.
When you become comfortable with the technical work, ask whether you can help with an abstract, poster, literature review, manuscript section, grant proposal, or small independent question. These opportunities may not appear unless you express interest.
You should also document your hours, projects, presentations, awards, and contributions while they are happening. My Premed Extracurricular Hours Tracker can help you maintain records for your eventual medical school application.
Frequently Asked Questions About Undergraduate Research
Is undergraduate research only for science majors?
No. Undergraduate research exists in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, engineering, education, business, public health, and many other fields. The methods and final products differ, but the experience still involves investigating a question and contributing to new knowledge or interpretation.
Is undergraduate research required for medical school?
Research is not required by every medical school, but it can strengthen your application and is particularly valuable for research-intensive institutions and MD-PhD programs. Clinical experience, service, academics, and an informed interest in medicine remain essential even when you have substantial research experience.
Do undergraduate researchers get paid?
Some students are paid through laboratory funding, work-study, grants, summer programs, or institutional fellowships. Others volunteer or receive academic credit. The arrangement varies, and it is appropriate to ask about compensation before accepting a position.
What does an undergraduate research assistant do?
A research assistant may read literature, prepare materials, run experiments, recruit participants, enter data, review medical records, analyze results, maintain equipment, prepare figures, or contribute to presentations and manuscripts. Your responsibilities should generally expand as you gain experience.
How long does undergraduate research take?
Many students remain in a laboratory for several semesters or years because research projects and publications move slowly. You can still benefit from a shorter summer program, but long-term involvement often allows more independence and a deeper relationship with the mentor.
Can I do undergraduate research as a freshman?
Yes. Some laboratories accept first-year students, while others prefer students who have completed certain courses. Beginning early can give you more time to become independent, but you do not need to rush into the first available position before you understand your academic workload.
Do I need a publication for medical school?
No. A publication can be valuable, but admissions committees should also consider your contribution, understanding, commitment, and growth. Many excellent projects are still in progress when a student applies.
Is clinical research better than basic science research for premed students?
Neither is automatically better. Clinical research may provide greater exposure to patients and healthcare delivery, while basic science can offer deeper experience with experiments and biological mechanisms. Choose the environment and topic that match what you want to learn.
Can undergraduate research help me decide between an MD and MD-PhD?
Yes. My own experience working with PhD students and researchers helped me see what the PhD side of an MD-PhD career would actually involve. Sustained research is one of the best ways to determine whether you enjoy the process enough to make it a central part of your future career.
You can also read my comparison of MD, PhD, and MD-PhD training as you explore those options.
Final Thoughts
Undergraduate research is not simply a résumé item or a box you need to check before medical school. At its best, it is a long-term learning experience that teaches you how knowledge is created, challenged, revised, and communicated.
When I arrived at college, I did not have a sophisticated understanding of research. I had the movie version in my head, and I had to learn the real process gradually. That process included repetitive experiments, failed attempts, troubleshooting, reading papers I did not initially understand, asking questions, and becoming more independent over time.
It also gave me mentors, introduced me to teams of students and scientists at different stages of training, allowed me to present my work at conferences, contributed to a publication, and helped me think seriously about MD-PhD careers. Those experiences became valuable parts of my medical school application, but they were even more valuable because of the skills and perspective I gained.
You do not need to enter a laboratory already knowing what you are doing. You need to be willing to learn, show up reliably, ask thoughtful questions, and remain patient when the process moves more slowly than you expected.
Begin by learning about the different research fields available at your university, identify several professors whose work genuinely interests you, and read my guide on how to email a professor about research. Once you begin meeting potential mentors, use my guide on how to find the right research and premed mentor to evaluate whether the environment will help you grow.
You can also explore the AspiringMD undergraduate research guides for help with grants, summer programs, posters, oral presentations, publications, research mentors, and getting the most out of your experience.