Over 90% of EECS Undergraduates complete a UROP during their time at MIT. EECS students UROP in a wide variety of labs and complete a wide variety of projects. You can find available UROPs through the MIT UROP office as well as through the EECS Opportunities List.
Finding a UROP
There are many resources to help students find a UROP:
- The UROP website lists many openings. It can also be helpful to browse the SuperUROP website (more on SuperUROP below), as many labs that have SuperUROP openings may also have UROP openings.
- Consider the areas that you might be interested in doing a UROP in, and read a little bit in that area. From there, try to find faculty in your area of interest by looking at research group sites. Many EECS undergraduates do UROPs in RLE, CSAIL, MTL, and LIDS, but there are many UROP opportunities all over campus.
- Reach out to researchers in your area of interest with a short but personalized email, explaining that you’re interested in UROPing with their group and why.
If you’ve found a potential UROP supervisor, talk to them about your goals up front. Are you hoping to eventually pursue an MEng or a PhD? Are you looking to learn more about a particular topic or technology? Talking to your supervisor about these types of issues may help them tailor your UROP experience.
We hope these tips help! And don’t worry if you haven’t followed these guidelines in the past; they’re skills that you build, and this may very well be the first time that you’re getting this kind of advice. So, don’t worry, practice will make you better. If you want to try out your interview skills on a real-life grad student or postdoc, make an appointment with the EECS Communication Lab.
SuperUROP
The Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, better known as SuperUROP, is designed for MIT juniors and seniors seeking an advanced research experience working closely with a faculty advisor and producing publication-worthy results. Since 2017, the yearlong program has also been open to students in the School of Engineering and the School of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences (SHASS).
For details on the program, visit the main SuperUROP information website. There, you can learn about current and past student projects in areas ranging from artificial intelligence to autonomous vehicles to adaptive flight control, and link to articles, slideshows, and video from previous years.
For UROP and SuperUROP mentors
There is a student-led and -developed guide to best practices for UROP and SuperUROP mentors, available here.