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🧵 Untitled Thread

Anonymous No. 16552979

>undergrad research
how fake is it?

Anonymous No. 16552986

i enjoyed introducing ugrads to the lab and helping them do some work, but even the most talented one completely failed to convince me of anything they concluded based on their experiments

Anonymous No. 16553008

>>16552979
Undergrads in my physics department were always given projects that were considered too menial and tedious even by PhD standards. It’s not fake. Just extremely inconsequential.

Anonymous No. 16553018

>>16552986
sounds like most academics

Anonymous No. 16553122

>>16552979
Undergrads in my lab are monkies that do menial tasks I don't want to do. They contribute to my research, but only though the sweat of their brow.

Anonymous No. 16553169

>>16553008
what consequential research did the phds carry out? tell me all about their incredibly important consequences, impress me

Anonymous No. 16553658

>>16553169
one guy in my group wrote a whole routine for reconstructing particle tracks using ML. Very useful stuff that got picked up by CERN because it saves a bunch of processing power. An undergrad cannot do something like that in 2-3 years while being bogged down by undergrad requirements.

Anonymous No. 16553721

>>16552979
>write bachelors thesis
>realize nobody cares about bachelors thesis
>write masters thesis
>realize nobody cares about masters thesis
>write phd
>realize nobody cares about phd thesis
>write paper
>realize like 5 people on earth care, and that includes me and my mother

Anonymous No. 16553723

>>16553721
The career of a midwit academic whose research topics are not X + deep learning

Anonymous No. 16553768

>>16553723
>midwit
>as opposed to an ML grifter
saar logic

Anonymous No. 16553770

>>16553768
No, they're midwits too, but get more attention

Anonymous No. 16554151

>>16552979
I'm a fourth-year undergrad who's published two first-authors (in good journals) and a few mid-authors, but I got really lucky and came into the lab with five years of experience with certain techniques that, while necessary to the research, most people in the lab knew nothing about, so virtually every paper that made it out of the lab needed work from me. Plus I got to de facto head a whole research direction so that was cool.
But others in my cohort are just redoing the same experiments for two years, so ymmv

Anonymous No. 16554176

>>16554151
>experiments
Enjoy working as an engineer with nobody remembering your name after you're done with your phd

Anonymous No. 16554189

>>16554176
people that shit on experiment are worse than useless for any endevour

Anonymous No. 16554218

>>16554176
Anon I do theory and computations for an experimental group. You're a retard.
>>16554189
True.

Anonymous No. 16554229

>>16554151
You might think it's cool now but you better get used to people taking credit for your work anon. I wrote a paper as an undergrad too. I came up with the topic, did all the theory, coded a numerical simulation, and wrote the paper. I didn't talk to my advisor until after the paper was written and he only gave me some advice correcting typos. His name was on the paper, and everyone else assumed he did everything and I did a coding project at his direction.

This experience has repeated for me to various extents throughout my masters, PhD, and now as a postdoc.

Anonymous No. 16554233

>>16554218
>Anon I do theory and computations for an experimental group.
Then you know most experimentalists could be replaced by monkeys.

Anonymous No. 16554240

>>16554229
So long as I get into a good PhD program I'm not as concerned about it now. I definitely maintain close documentation and keep as much open-source and under my name as possible for now. Presenting at conferences also helps as I'm starting to become a recognizable face among the bigger researchers in my specific field.
My PI has been more than gracious in making sure I get as much recognition as possible for the work I've been doing and has been a great mentor so far. I don't think he's been taking credit he doesn't deserve.

Anonymous No. 16554252

>>16554240
Well it sounds like you are in a better situation than I was or am. When you get into your PhD program pick your advisor wisely. Sometimes the biggest names are not the best choices. Good luck to you

Anonymous No. 16554255

>>16554252
Bless you anon. Good luck to you too.

Anonymous No. 16554285

>>16553658
>Very useful stuff that got picked up by CERN because it saves a bunch of processing power
i dont believe you. I dont believe theres any need for any new algorithm for processing particle physics data, or that any novel or useful algorithm can be cooked by an undergrad. You are just repeating second hand myths. Saves a bunch of processing power? Sure.. how much processing power? Compared to what? How many gygacyles per kilowatt are saved, huh?
Thought so.

Anonymous No. 16554438

>>16554151
what were those techniques
if you wish to answer

Anonymous No. 16554471

>>16553658
how is that useful? what concrete developments did it lead to?

Anonymous No. 16554475

>>16554285
>I dont believe theres any need for any new algorithm for processing particle physics data
There are literal petabytes of data that need to be processed at the LHC. Anything is an improvement.
>or that any novel or useful algorithm can be cooked by an undergrad
That’s a reading comprehension problem on your part. I was talking about a PhD student’s thesis.

Anonymous No. 16554480

>>16554475
>Anything is an improvement.
I dont believe some undergrad improved anything for the LHC
>>16554475
>. I was talking about a PhD student’s thesis.
Same shit. No one in your group improved anything at the LHC

Anonymous No. 16554484

>>16554480
Why exactly and no walkarounds is the key to figure out what it is

Anonymous No. 16554494

>>16554285
Why don't you go eat some castor beans.

Anonymous No. 16554498

it's completely fake it's the new bullshit that professors push to get you to be the perfect goyim then steal your idea
undergrads were never supposed to do research period. unless you are bill gates and start writing an israeli OS 24/7.. which is not a fair expectation to a socialized education system.. because the whole point is to kill savants and drink their blood
turn around and walk away, I did it and got nothing
and they mutilated my dick at birth
they will take everything from you
you are all liars and thieves

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Anonymous No. 16554502

>>16554480
>I dont believe some undergrad improved anything for the LHC
because you can’t fucking read for the life of you apparently
>Same shit.
You also never went to grad school it seems.

Anonymous No. 16554516

>>16554475
i'm a grad student who works closely with a group that very well might be in collaboration with yours. i have seen firsthand the complete lack of finesse with which experimental particle physicists tend to treat high-precision data. whatever works works until it no longer does, and tbqhon a bunch of undergrads or first-/second-year phd students are the perfect monkeys to put on the job.

Anonymous No. 16554521

>>16554516
kek yes, that’s an issue I’m not going to argue with. But what did you expect from physicstards? Have you seen the absolute clusterfuck that is ROOT?

Anonymous No. 16554529

>>16554502
>You also never went to grad school it seems.
I got a masters and then i left physics, as is the case with most students. I had average grades and not good enough to be a professor or a good researcher, but i have seen the fews good ones go on to do absolutely nothing. The hallmark of success in this profession is to get a coveted chair in a prestigious institution and then do nothing as the king of donothings.
Physics as a whole is a dead and stagnant field and no one is developing anything. No one in your group improved anything at the LHC.

Anonymous No. 16554534

>>16554529
>as is the case with most students
must be either a yuro thing or a shit school in the US because the top ones literally don’t offer masters programs, only phds.
>Physics as a whole is a dead and stagnant field and no one is developing anything
Highly depends on the field. HEP theory is pretty much humanities tier at this point but something like AMO is alive and well.
>No one in your group improved anything at the LHC.
Keep seething, bro. Sorry you didn’t attend a good school lol.

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Anonymous No. 16554558

>>16554529
>Physics as a whole is a dead and stagnant field and no one is developing anything
Which is why I think it's a good thing physics programs are starting to encourage students to apply physics techniques to other fields.
Shit, biophysics is just moderately talented physics and math students picrelling to seasoned experimental biologists and getting cell papers out of it.

Anonymous No. 16554574

>>16554534
>Sorry you didn’t attend a good school lol.
You only prove what i said. Most people will not go to a top school because by definition of what the top is. Are you so fucking stupid to know that 100% cannot be 1%?
Most people that graduate from top schools do not become researchers at to schools, they get recycled by lower level universities or move to China where they are expanding their universtities. People that are extremely good at physics can still make it even if they come from lowly universities, and compensate with sheer talent.
But they still do nothing.
Its a similar situation with engineers, 75% of which will never work in a serious way in their own profession.
In any case, i dodged a bullet by leaving the field after my masters. The rest of my class went through 10 years of agonizing begging for PhD positions, post docs, associates in random places. They will do anything for a buck and pretty much discover absolutely nothing. Some cope by saying they are cogs in a machine that is still doing important things, that they are part of a group, that they once talked to Witten.

Anonymous No. 16554578

>>16554529
computational physics is big dick energy and there's money to be made
the computational power available in 2025 is unprecedented
a good physicists knows physics, mathematics, electronics, and computer science

Anonymous No. 16554582

>>16554578
Von Neumann was sooooo right

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Anonymous No. 16554592

>>16554578
Got any more simulations?

Anonymous No. 16554606

>>16554574
We get it, it’s sour grapes for you. No need to write paragraphs of seethe about it.

Anonymous No. 16554643

most of it isn't "real" research
they're typically small and trivial projects to give you the experience of working on and completing a project independently
if it is good research they usually worked in a lab for the person who did all the thinking

Anonymous No. 16554663

>>16553721
>>16553723
You got it wrong. You should have topic that is popular and new but not that popular

Anonymous No. 16554690

>>16554151
How do you have five years of experience as a fourth year undergrad

Anonymous No. 16554696

>>16552979
I got more out of college doing undergrad research than I ever did sitting in a class listening to lectures every week and taking a test on it.
I felt like I got my moneys worth actually doing shit and learning how to read/write journals.

Anonymous No. 16554704

>>16554690
Five years experience by the time I joined the lab as a second-year undergrad. This would be my seventh year.
Worked as a sysadmin intern for an HPC cluster from sophomore year and did research in a big-name lab in a field adjacent to the one I'm in that focused heavily on high-throughput computing. Two national conferences and a preprint before prom, but not without significant guidance and multiple weeks' worth of skipping class to go to the lab and self-study. Almost didn't graduate high school for this reason.
Took a slight hiatus my first year of college to explore other fields of research, take more formal stats/math/scientific computing courses, and build up my github but i ultimately returned to my previous work and have stuck with it since. I do love the field and couldn't imagine anything else I could convince myself to spend 80 hours a week on.
I'll caveat by saying that I'm very fortunate and a lot of stars aligned these past few years.

Anonymous No. 16554706

>>16553122
Funny, because you sound like a PhD yourself, then you should know you only exist as a trained monkey to advance your PI's career.

Anonymous No. 16554712

>>16554690
>five years of experience with certain techniques
my nigger sucks a mean dick

Anonymous No. 16554717

>>16552979
jesus, i can't tell if that's ciemas or not. i don't think it is, but...

Anonymous No. 16554728

>>16554704
No offense, but grindcels like you are the reason why the undergrad application process is so miserable nowadays. Every time I read about what high schoolers have to do to get into a good college, I feel like I caught the last helicopter out of Saigon.

Anonymous No. 16554730

>>16554728
what high schoolers don't get is that most schools are interchangeable on an undergrad educational level. there's no shame in going to state.
there's also no shame in not going to college

Anonymous No. 16554732

>>16554606
>We get it, it’s sour grapes for you
Im sure you will totally revolutionize physics if you propose some twist in an ML model that will totally increase speed by 0.2% (as member of a multinational 78 person team)

Anonymous No. 16554735

>>16554730
>most schools are interchangeable on an undergrad educational leve
In terms of education yes, for networking no. If you went to an ivy league you could meet the next Jeffrey Epstein

Anonymous No. 16554736

>>16554728
On the contrary. I sacked my undergrad admissions because research was way more interesting and I had zero executive function. I had an awful GPA and no teachers to write letters of rec so I ended up at some low-tier state school. Things are going much better now but I would definitely have balanced things out and tried for a school with better resources and faculty.

Anonymous No. 16554738

>>16554735
why i said most.
that being said, the best networking comes from graduate school, where you absolutely want to be selective about your institution

Anonymous No. 16554743

>>16554736
Not the worst thing to happen. Most of those state schools have some interesting research projects to join.

>>16554732
I'm in a computational field so all of my work is done on a laptop. What is it like working on one of those mega projects in physics/engineering? Does it feel more fulfilling than the small scale stuff?

Anonymous No. 16554746

>>16554732
Even more sour grapes. A contribution is a contribution, anon. Nobody needs to be the next Dirac to contribute to their field.
>>16554736
College admissions in America are a total circus show where you have to play the cards right and that’s it. That’s why so many Jews and East Asians excel at it. They love these Talmudic games.

Anonymous No. 16554747

>>16554502
If something at LHC has been improved then it would have started pumping out useful, meaningful discoveries. Since it continues instead to be completely useless that shows conclusively that no improvements have been made.

Anonymous No. 16554749

>>16554747
That’s not how science works, you absolute mong. Nature doesn’t care that your measurement apparatus got 3% more accurate. There’s no contractual obligation for it to show you anything. And the LHC produces plenty of research to this day, but you don’t know about it because Rachel Goldberg, the science journalist, doesn’t write popular articles about it.

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Anonymous No. 16554863

I did undergrad research with a CS and a pure math professor
>CS research: constant experimentation, no theory at all. Got two papers published.
>Math research: just reading a textbook and doing exercises. No publishing pressure.
The CS research was complete BS, I published two papers as first author in the best conference in the field without knowing a thing about what I was doing. Made me a bit jaded with experimental science.

Anonymous No. 16554887

>>16554863
Did you move onto a PhD?

Anonymous No. 16554915

>>16554887
Still an undergrad, but I will graduate this year around July.
Unsure if I will go for a pure math PhD or become a code monkey (in industry, not in academia that's for certain)

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Anonymous No. 16554929

>>16552979
>how fake is it?

be jewish
go to patent bureau for soviet science or look for soviet logarithm research book.
take one from 60-70
steal it and project on todays technologies
sell it as own
you got not the quantum computer and AI engine.
pretend you are genius when talking nonsense
repeat each 5-6 years.

Anonymous No. 16555013

>>16554704
So you're basically been planning on this since high school?

Anonymous No. 16555015

>>16554863
What field was it? How did you do it? Fuck me I'm planning on doing a research masters this year and on fucking 4chan there's undergrads with multiple first name papers. Academia is getting ridiculous

Anonymous No. 16555106

>>16554558
Biophysics is not physicists doing biology, same as bioinformatics is neither biology or computer science.
>>16552979
I spent my undergrad working with a molecular biologist running cell cultures and standard DNA-molecular biology work. I didn't publish anything, they also didn't publish anything, and in my 3rd year they were fired from the university. Couple weeks ago they posted on linkeding about being close to publishing their first paper. From career perspective I wasted my undergrad working for a crackpot

Anonymous No. 16555149

>>16555013
Wouldn't say planned. I sort of just fell into it as I grew up in a highly competitive area and stuck with it because everything was extremely boring by comparison. Very boneheaded approach that's paid off just so-so so far.

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Anonymous No. 16555420

>>16555015
>What field was it?
I hope you understand that I don't want to get doxxed, but the CS was on genetic algorithms and such the math one is on a functional analysis subfield.
>How did you do it?
I literally just cold-approached professors, we talked for a while and they wanted me in.
Of course, for the math research I waited until I knew basic analysis, algebra and topology beforehand, and I went into the CS research knowing how to program already.

Feel free to ask more questions, and don't feel bad about it. While research will probably help in grad school I'm not a great student at all. My GPA is 3.2, iirc.

Anonymous No. 16555812

>>16555420
Bump

Anonymous No. 16555832

>>16552979
I've always avoided giving undergrads work related to my projects, I don't trust them with any kind of work, and explaining what they have to do takes as much time as doing it myselft properly

Anonymous No. 16555875

>>16552979
I asked around everywhere and applied like crazy, but everyone told me to fuck off despite being near the top of my class. So, I didn't personally do any research.

From what I've seen of others, not a single one of them were able to explain the topic they worked on. One who did semiconductor work couldn't even tell me what a semiconductor was.

Anonymous No. 16555891

>>16555420
did they need a resume from you, or any detail of experience?

Anonymous No. 16555905

>>16555420
What field was your said mathematics textbook on? How do you count doing exercises in a textbook as "research"?

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Anonymous No. 16555913

>>16555420
My gpa is also 3.2 and I don't have first name papers

Anonymous No. 16555924

>>16555913
Put the fried in the bag, anon

Anonymous No. 16555940

>>16555832
>>16555875
I think for most schools there are maybe a handful of undergrads who are talented and hardworking enough to manage a project in a single program at a given time. Most of these students have exceptional backgrounds by the time they come in (parents are academics, went to a really good private school/dual enrolled, etc.) and can almost certainly hold a conversation about the research the lab is doing.
Published undergrads (first authors especially) are basically nonexistent outside of super productive labs or PIs with maybe one or two grad students, and the expectation for US grad programs is that the vast majority of these kids are coming in with basically no actual field-specific knowledge. The ones who do work and get published are all fighting for the top 10 program they'll inevitably end up at.

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Anonymous No. 16555959

>>16555924
B-b-but I want to do research and go to conferences and publish papers

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Anonymous No. 16555962

>>16555891
The CS one was impressed by someone from math being interested in his field (he said as much), he just asked me to do a programming challenge to see if I could do the required work and I passed.
For pure math, it was weird. The professor is very nice but our first talk was like a hidden job interview but about algebra and analysis. I just answered everything right and he said he wanted to advise me the next day.

>>16555905
I will give you the first book we used directly, https://www.gbv.de/dms/goettingen/245433228.pdf.
It's an introductory FA book with some focus in Operator Algebras. We moved on to three other books in more specific subjects since then.
>How do you count doing exercises in a textbook as "research"?
I understand you completely, in the bureaucracy it is counted as research but it's really private tutoring. Getting all the pre-requisites for research math takes time you know, especially as an undergrad... It is like this: I read the book, do the exercises, and ask questions in a meeting every week where the professor explains stuff. Only recently have we got to a point that we're looking into some completely new stuff (as in, reading papers published in 2024), but it will probably be my focus on a MSc or PhD since I'm almost graduating already.

>>16555913
Ouch. Sorry, I don't know what to say... I was just lucky I think. Ganbatte, anon.

Remember people, this is all anecdotal... your mileage may vary. I just did research because I went into college already wanting to go into academia, I wouldn't recommend if you went into college wanting a regular job.