Ever wondered how to start your research journey as an undergrad? We speak with Professor Shubhangi Saraf, 2025 Chair of the Undergraduate Summer Research Committee in Computer Science, about what undergraduate research is all about and how students can get involved in the program.
Chapters coming soon!
Credits
Audio editing done by the University of Toronto's Arts and Science Digital Teaching & Learning Studio, located in the Sidney Smith Building at the St. George Campus.
Mario: In the last episode, we heard many interesting stories from undergraduate students who pursued research over the summer.
Diane: And we thought our listeners might like to hear the faculty perspective. So in this episode, we talk with the 2025 Chair of the Undergraduate Summer Research Committee in the Department of Computer Science, Shubhangi Saraf. Welcome to the show, Shubhangi.
Diane: I'd like to ask you, first of all, why should students consider pursuing a research experience? What are they going to get out of it?
Shubhangi: Good. So I think a research experience is wholly unlike anything students have experienced through their courses. So it's a very different experience and a lot like what problem solving in the real world looks like. It's very open ended.
Shubhangi: It's- your students take the initiative to learn a whole bunch of tools and techniques, which is may not be present in books, but you explore maybe research papers or other sources around the research topic. You might have to formulate the right question. Sometimes even that is open ended.
Shubhangi: And you make advances on real world, cutting edge problems. And that experience is something you don't really get in a classroom and the satisfaction and the excitement of actually contributing or learning something at the edge of what research today is like is just a very new experience. And in addition to this experience of contributing new knowledge or building the state of knowledge, you also build a lot of skills which don't come necessarily from just what you learn in the classroom.
Mario: Right.
Shubhangi: So skills like reading current research papers, skills like collaborating with a research group, collaborating with other maybe graduate students, faculty members, thinking creatively about problem-solving, which is very open-ended, so you don't have a clear resource to go to, and it's a lot of new...
Mario: There's no like course notes that you can just refer to.
Shubhangi: There are no course notes. You have to figure out yourself. You have to ask the question, figure out creatively a solution which does not already exist.
Shubhangi: So it's a new set of... Your brain is working in ways that it did not need to before this. And you also learn maybe technical writing.
You learn how to present your work, which is maybe at a poster session or at a conference. So there are different opportunities to talk about your work. So you also build a whole bunch of skills which, whether or not you go into research in the future, these skills will be, I think, immensely useful.
Shubhangi: And you have opportunities for mentorship from faculty members. You get opportunities to build relationships with faculty members and others in the related community.
Shubhangi: So for all these reasons, it's a very valuable experience to have. Whether you're going to graduate, if you're going to want to go on to graduate school, this is essential. It will give you an exposure of what graduate school is like. It will... The relationships you build with the faculty members and their group, that might result in a recommendation letter, which is again an essential ingredient of what a graduate school application requires. And even if you go into industry, I think having a research experience as part of your portfolio makes it stand out. It shows that you have been involved in something, you've taken initiative, you've been involved in something very creative, and you've been involved in the kind of problem solving, which might make your application stand out.
Diane: You've really gone above and beyond. You haven't just learned how to do what's been set out for you. You've, like you said, taken initiative, both in getting that research experience, which is not prescribed and required in our undergrad program, and also in doing it.
Shubhangi: That's correct.
Mario: Well, I mean, it's clear that you learn a lot doing this undergraduate research experience, and you get a lot of skills, and you make all these connections, like you were saying. But you also kind of mentioned how it's open-ended. You're trying to come up with a solution that does not exist.
Diane: So much uncertainty, right?
Mario: Yeah, there's all this uncertainty involved. So would you say that like, this kind of an experience is for everyone?
Shubhangi: I think it's worth everyone giving it a serious thought, and a serious try. There might be students who will try it out and find, I believe, that they did not enjoy it so much. But I think till you try it, you don't really know.
Shubhangi: In addition, the skills you learn, I think, are for everyone. I think that I believe the kinds of technical skills, and the tools, and the mentorship you receive, and the communication skills you learn, I think, are relevant to everyone. But everybody may not enjoy the open-endedness of the research experience.
Shubhangi: And for some students, it might be extremely exciting and satisfying, and it can be transformative, and it could define what they want to do with their future. But I think if you try it out and realize that it's not for you, it's okay too. But I do think it's something that students haven't already experienced.
Shubhangi: So till you do it, you don't really know what it's about. So I think it's something students should give a serious thought.
Shubhangi: Sometimes also the first research project that you do might not be the one that clicks for you.
Shubhangi: It just, maybe as part of doing the project, you realize that this is a topic maybe that doesn't interest you. And as you speak to other students and you learn about other projects, you might feel like trying something else. And from my own experience as an undergrad, “I did multiple research projects, and some of them did not work out, and they were not...
Shubhangi: But I learned something about myself from each one, and eventually I found something that spoke to me, something that was exciting to me.
Mario: So these were like projects on different domains or like projects that require different things?
Shubhangi: So I'm a theoretical computer scientist. I think they were all like theory based, but different. Some were more on the math side, some were more applied. They were very different kinds of theory. And but I did them at different stages, like I did one after my one during my second year, one during my third year, one in the summer between my third and fourth. So I also had learned new skills and learned more about myself as I went on. So they were also different scopes of skills or scopes of projects.
Diane: I think it's so interesting that you're talking about an incredible diversity of kinds of research, even within theoretical computer science, which is only one small piece. We have students writing proofs, we have students running experiments on human subjects, we have students running simulation experiments, building big software “implementations of research ideas. There's just so much diversity in the kind of tasks they're undertaking, the kind of underlying tools they're using from math and statistics and other areas.
Diane: And that's not even talking about the domain of the problems that they're solving. So it's just incredibly vast.
Shubhangi: And I agree. I think even so, I see students who are doing research over summer. And as I talk, I'm talking to students, I'm seeing them doing so many different things.
And I think the students are also learning about the kinds of research that are happening by, talked- by this community of students who are brought together by the summer undergraduate summer research program, which maybe I'll talk about more shortly. But as students learn about the other projects that are going on, they are also exposed to what possibilities there are.
Diane: Maybe this is a good time to ask, since we're talking about diversity of the work they're doing, about the scope and size, how much can a student get done? We're going to focus right now on the students working on research projects over the summer, because we have a really nice program for them, in addition to the research that they're experiencing. We'll talk about that in a minute.
But in a summer, full summer of doing research, especially for the students working full time, how much can they get done?
Shubhangi: So I think you can, it's a very immersive experience. This is the only thing that the students are doing. They're doing full time, perhaps 30 to 40 hours a week for 12 to 15 weeks. So that is quite a long time to devote to one project. And getting involved in research and truly making some advances does need that kind of immersion and that kind of time. It gives students time to appreciate the question, learn about the background material, learn the relevant skills or seek out the relevant people to talk to and pick up the skills needed to work on the problem.
Shubhangi: These are unlike course projects or homework assignments, which have a very clear cut set out goals and you can give yourself a week and get it done.
Mario: You can't do research in a week.
Shubhangi: You can't do research like that. Sometimes 12 to 15 weeks may not be even enough to set to complete whatever task you were hoping to do. It might just be the start of a research experience. And that's great, too. Like if you understood the question, you understood the context, even if you've taken the first steps towards a solution, that can be a very satisfying experience. And maybe undergrads who do this over summer can continue working on the research project even after summer.
It doesn't have to end when the summer program ends. So, but it does, I think it's enough time to give the students a flavor of what research is like, because it is maybe three to four months of complete immersion in that question or that project.
Mario: Yeah, and that immersive experience is really, really kind of simulating what it would be like if you went to grad school, because that's what you'll be doing.
Shubhangi: That is correct.
Diane: Do some students get papers out of their summer projects? I know some do, but how common is that?
Shubhangi: I don't know the answer to how common is that. Imagine even if it's not a paper, it might be a poster at a conference. It might be, I mean, the faculty member who knows you really well can write, can appreciate the work you've done and write for you, write about your work.
And that can be a great outcome, even if it's not a research project. If you're going to apply to graduate school, doing work that a faculty member can appreciate and write about is often a great boom or bonus to your application. And it is something to talk about on your CV for even non-academic jobs.
Shubhangi: And so I think it's great if a paper comes out of it, but that need not- you shouldn't be disappointed if that does not happen. You still get so many benefits from the experience.
Diane: So we've mentioned a few times this special thing that goes on in the summer in Computer Science at U of T called the Undergraduate Summer Research Program or UGSRP. And this is a program that sits alongside students' existing research experiences and adds to that. Do you want to tell us about the purpose of this program?
Shubhangi: I think that the one significant purpose of this program is to give the students who are doing research over summer a community experience. So one aspect of the program is for, so maybe about 10 to 12 weeks of summer, we organize sessions every Friday, where all the students come together.
And these sessions have had different flavors. We have some sessions, which are information sessions, telling students what applying to graduate school looks like, telling students about the graduate program and the MSCAC program at U of T. There have also been talks by faculty about giving tips to students about how undergraduate research looks like, what a typical experience looks like, how do you read a research paper, how do you give a research presentation.
So it's an opportunity to hear from faculty members about these topics and an opportunity to discuss these topics with your students and share experiences of- because everybody is going through similar experiences. And it's also another topic for talks we've had is faculty members describing their own research in their labs. So we've had a few talks by faculty members describing their research.
Shubhangi: And it gives students again, an experience of what different kinds of research is going on at U of T. And so these sessions every Friday have a component where we've had these information session talks or research talks or research skills talks. And it's followed by a networking session among the students.
So the faculty members stick around and the students get to talk or interact with the faculty, as well as interact with each other and learn from each other and discuss these topics with each other. Because I think this community of researchers over summer, it's this networking experience can be really fun in it that you learn about the research experiences, you learn about the successes and failures of other students and you realize you're not alone. And these might also be friends or colleagues or companions for you later in life.
Shubhangi: I think this is a great community of people to get to know who have been involved in research here. And you might learn from them and keep learning from them in the years to come. So it's community building plus learning skills and getting exposed to research.
Mario: Yeah, there's a few communities there, I think, right? Like just being part of the program, you're in a research lab, so that's like one community that you're a part of. There's the other students doing summer research, so that's yet another community.
Diane: And you might not have even met them if you weren't coming together every Friday for these events.
Mario: Yeah, and then finally, you mentioned like the faculty members are giving these talks, and that's, I don't know if that's a community, but that's yet another, like, I guess, connection that you can make to add to your network.
Shubhangi: Absolutely. It's a chance also to get mentorship, like if these faculty, it's an opportunity to interact with faculty and talk to them and learn from them and make connections with for the future.
Diane: In a really natural environment where they're expecting to have conversations with you about research and grad school and various technical topics. It's much easier in that context than if you want to go knock on a door and talk to someone that you don't actually know.
Shubhangi: Absolutely.
Diane: I love that about it. That's wonderful. Thank you.
Shubhangi: Oh, I didn't mention there was one more thing. This undergraduate summer program will culminate in a research showcase. So the students who have been doing their research over summer will get an opportunity to present their research via a poster to the community.
Shubhangi: So it's an opportunity to share your research and also build upon your communication skills and share your research with the other students and the faculty members present. So I think that's a very exciting culmination of the program.
Diane: More skill building and a product you can show when you're applying for a grad school or for jobs and all the people that you'll talk to at the event. It's a really good opportunity for students. I love it.
Mario: Yeah. I've been telling my 494 students this summer that usually a poster is one of the first things that you show in a graduate research program. This is my work in progress so far. I'd love to solicit some feedback and you're at a conference. So getting that practice of not just building the poster, but talking to people about the poster is really important. And I'm really glad that it's part of the showcase or part of the program.
Mario: Do you have any tips on how to find a supervisor for a research project?
Shubhangi: A bad strategy, I think, is to just to e-mail a large number of faculty and say, hey, I'm looking for a research project, is there one? I do get a large number of e-mails like that and one tends to overlook those e-mails because it feels generic and just written. The same e-mail could have been sent to everyone.
Mario: And we have a Slack where we're asked, did everybody get this e-mail?
Shubhangi: So I think it's- what advice to students is to look at the courses you've taken and identify the topics that you find exciting. Identify the faculty members whose research interests correlate with the topics that these students find interesting. And then look up these faculty members, look up on the website the kinds of research they've been involved in.
Shubhangi: Do your homework. Spend some time in understanding if this is the kind of thing you might want to do. You could even talk, if you've taken a course with a particular faculty member, it's very easy to approach them because you've already built some kind of relationship with them through the course. So you could approach them after a course you find interesting. Or do your homework. Find out if the interests of the faculty member align with yours. And send a more thoughtful e-mail which shows that you're truly interested in this kind of project. And if the faculty member does not reply, it need not mean they are not interested.
Shubhangi: Sometimes it's okay to resend the e-mail or approach them directly in person through networking opportunities. You can talk to your fellow undergraduate students and find out what kinds of projects are available and get a feeling for what kinds of labs are looking for undergraduate students. And once you know this information, it will be maybe, there's a higher chance of approaching the faculty member who would have the opening.
Shubhangi: I think talking to graduate students and your TAs is another resource because oftentimes they have more time and they might be more aware of available projects or be able to guide you in the right direction.
Shubhangi: You could also talk to a faculty member you know and get advice from them. Look, I'm really interested in this research area. What do you advise I do? Do you know any project that has openings or anybody I could talk to?
Diane: So you can talk to profs who are doing something you're interested in and don't know you. If you do your homework, that can be effective. And you can talk to profs you know who aren't doing the research that you're interested in for advice about how to get closer to the ones who are.
Diane: Talk to your profs.
Shubhangi: Find out ways to talk to profs who are willing to give you advice. Courses is great. Like if you take a course which is even somewhat advanced and if the course has a project that's part of the course and you're going to do it, sometimes you can ask the professor for a research paper related to the course or for ideas for how to continue the project beyond what is in the course.
Shubhangi: And that might give you the start of a new project or it will show initiative to the faculty member who might then try to create a project around it or put you in touch with somebody who's doing a related project.
Mario: Yeah, for assignments and especially projects, especially at the advanced courses, like you were saying, there's multiple goals. One is to learn, I hope. The other is to get a good grade on the project or the assignment. But a third could definitely be like, well, can I make this assignment even grander in scope and see what kind of research can come out of it? And just thinking that way could open some doors for you.
Shubhangi: Absolutely.
Diane: Yeah, and if you talk to a prof bringing genuine interest, that will leave a really positive impression on anybody.
Shubhangi: Absolutely. Yeah, so showing the interest by putting in the work beforehand to even discover for yourself that you are interested in this topic, I think is valuable.
Shubhangi: For the summer research program, I believe faculty, even if they have research projects, they post these projects.
And so you can go through them and see if the projects which are posted align already with your research interests.
Diane: And then you just apply, right?
Shubhangi: Apply and then contact the faculty and tell them why you're interested in that you applied, and that might be a resource.
Mario: That's it for our episodes on undergraduate research this season.
Diane: We hope these last two episodes have given you an idea of what you might expect if you were to take on a research project, the time commitment involved and what you might get out of it.
Mario: And a huge thank you to Professor Shubhangi Saraf for all her insights this episode.
Diane: Yes, thank you, Shubhangi.
Mario: My name is Mario Badr.
Diane: And I'm Diane Horton. And you are In the Loop.