Independent research experience is vastly different from typical in-class lectures or even laboratory classes. To effectively learn how to do science, one has to do research, which means working independently on a project with a coherent set of goals. In this course, a mentor-apprentice (adviser advisee) relationship is used to guide each student through the different phases of the research process. The course will start with lectures on basics of research and the students will then select a field of interest and choose an adviser who is knowledgeable in that area. The students, with the help of their advisers, will then select a topic from a list of possible topics and formulate a problem. The selection of topic will be done through a title defense oral presentation with the course instructor. The students will then be guided on how to write the chapters of a proposal through regular lectures. Seminars and talks from distinguished researchers which will focus on research design and analysis will also be given so that the students will learn how to discuss and analyze their data when they have already started their actual research investigations. The culmination of this course
will be an oral presentation of the thesis proposal of each student.