Mfw first author as an undergrad

>get into random discussion with professor about using genetic algorithms in engineering applications before class one day
>it turns out this is what he did his thesis on
>both he and his wife (who is a CS professor) are really into this kind of thing
>show up the next week with a working GA finite element optimizer
>even more impressed
>"here have all my old textbooks from grad school"
>spend the next five months working on a new optimization algorithm that's better suited to this kind of thing
>check in periodically to show my progress
>finally get the OK to publish

Did you fuck his wife

No, but she's a qt and it makes me uncomfortable

Tell her that she updates the weights in your pants and tell us what happens

>Tfw the alphabet made me the first author of the paper I published with a professor and another undergrad, so that it's cited as [my name] et al.
Feels gud man

fuck that is actually prime, you lucked out Abraham Anderson

>first author as an undergrad
youtube.com/watch?v=FSYcxPWxmbg

>using et al in a field where authors are liated alphabetically
Disgusting.

>listing all their names instead
wtf

>got author on an undergrad paper
>said paper is probably shit, all we did was try to retread previous work
>all I did was use 9th grade geometry to prevent waypoint looping

Who /hack/ here?

>Who /hack/ here?
I "independently discovered" the trapezoid approximation in 1994 and got 230 citations for it

>tfw wrote to every professor in my department and every related department and cannot even get a look at any research

Fuck it, at least I have hundreds of hours of clinical observation and shadowing.

The key is to not give a shit about school and work on personal projects instead. Then professors are blown away when they see them. I'm

But when genetics is my area of interest and I have no programming skills, I can't do anything without a lab.

I would have to buy a centrifuge, thermocycler, microscope, autoclave, countless disposables and pieces of glassware, and cultivation equipment for model organisms.

Even then, I wouldn't know what I was doing having no training.

Start selectively breeding bacteria or some shit. Also CRISPR is supposedly easy enough to do in your garage. Or learn some basic programming skills and start messing with some of the publicly available genome datasets.

Maybe I'll pursue this.

Assuming you are the same user, when you were given the go ahead to publish, what was involved in doing so?

Did your professor endorse it or something?

Basically I just sort of started working on this project and checking in occasionally until they finally said "okay, this is complete enough that you should probably publish it." Just think of something cool that interests you and have at it. Show it to your professors and ask for advice along the way. They love interesting and unconventional things.

My meaning is how did the publication actually work, did a professor act as a reference?

I doubt a publisher would look hard at a paper submitted by a random undergrad without a professor vouching for it.

Well, it's still in the process of being drafted. Basically I have no idea how to go about any of this so I'm pretty much relying on them for advice on how to publish. They'll walk you through it if they like what they see.

Also you don't necessarily have to publish your personal project either. This was originally just something I was fucking around with, but in general having something to show your professors will makes them want to invite you onto their research.

Kek

To be fair, it's not really amenable to every field, but it does happen. I submitted a conference paper as a first author during undergrad and finished the full paper a month after being done with undergrad. It was in a real "grown-up" journal, but I would still consider the work a bit sub-par with the standards that I have now. I know of at least one other person in my department from my year. I wasn't even in a top school.

It shouldn't be something you shoot for thinking it's a sure bet, As I said it's very field dependent, and even then, there is a large amount of luck involved. It does open doors to every and any grad school you ever wanted to get into though.

You don't have a choice in experimental high energy physics. It's always a shitload of authors and the convention is alphabetical.

I got into grad school fully funded w/ a monthly stipend with a 3.2GPA and no publications just because I impressed a professor. Don't need to be smart when you're good at talking, you fucking autists.

What institution?

Likely not one of high rank, though I do not mean to belittle.

It's not a high rank, mid tier state school in US.

>what is using the name of an organization instead

same here, worked with gene deletion in a certain Burkholderia bacteria

Link to paper

Link it op unless you're a redditor who thinks le evil Veeky Forums's gonna ruin his life