# of research months

[anonymous_dude]

I've seen a lot of applications asking about how many full-time months of research you have. This means you take the total estimated hours of research and divide it into the number of full-time 40 hour weeks worked and convert that to months. So, if you did 10 hrs per week of research for 4 months, that would be 1 month of full-time research. I'm seeing people on this forum say they have 12+ months of total research experience. I'm wondering how this is possible in a 4 year undergrad program. Is it normal for people to overstate how much research they have? I took a long time to calculate mine and even with 3 internships and school research I calculated that I've only done about 7-8 months of full-time (40 hrs per week) research.

[alion22]

I think probably people list the amount of time they participated in research, rather than accounting for the difference in part-time vs. full-time when they post their stats on this forum. I know that I personally just say I've been doing research for 2 years rather than saying something like 4 months (full-time). Of course, when applications ask about it, you calculate whatever they ask for.

[geekusprimus]

I'm seeing people on this forum say they have 12+ months of total research experience. I'm wondering how this is possible in a 4 year undergrad program. Is it normal for people to overstate how much research they have?

It is possible to accumulate 12+ months of full-time research in a four-year program, but it strongly depends on how much research your program lets you do. I had 12 months of full-time research by the time my applications were ready, and that wasn't even uncommon in my program. However, I went to a school with a very small graduate program that consequently dedicated a rather large portion of their research funding to paying for undergraduate research assistants; that is certainly not the case everywhere.

That being said, what most people are reporting here is calendar time spent doing research, not the full-time equivalent.

[flut34]

I have never seen this and I just got done with applications in December. Where did you see this?

[cosmologyftw]

Considering some people have 2 summers worth of full time research (6-7months), 12+ months of full time is not unreasonable. Also some people may be saying 12+ months meaning 21+ months of participation, rather than 12+ months worth of full time work.