How an undergrad with no connections gets into a research lab, specifically

2026-07-29 · Yusuf Gadelrab

I get asked this a lot now that I have two SIGCSE 2026 papers, so here is the actual sequence, not the inspirational version.

Step one. Read the professor's recent work. Not the abstract. One full paper. This takes an evening and it is the entire difference between an email that gets answered and one that doesn't.

Step two. Email them offering to do the tedious part. I want to be precise here because this is where people flinch. I did not offer ideas. I offered transcription, data cleaning, IRB paperwork, participant scheduling. Nobody turns down free help on the boring half, and the boring half is where you actually learn what a method is. You cannot understand a mixed-methods study from the outside. You understand it by coding transcripts until the categories stop feeling arbitrary.

Step three. Be reliable for a semester before you ask for anything. Reliability is rarer than talent in undergrads and it is immediately visible.

Step four. Then have opinions. By then you've earned the standing to say the interesting thing, and you'll have a better one to say.

That's it. That's the whole path. It took one email as a freshman.

Our study asked what happens to students learning to code when the language is English and their thinking isn't. 60 participants, IRB approved, mixed methods. Learners reported significant gains in confidence, and the novices gained the most. In intro CS, confidence isn't a soft outcome. It's the variable that decides whether someone shows up to the second class.

If you're an undergrad reading this: the email is free, and the worst outcome is silence.

https://yusuf-gadelrab.github.io/about.html